Metroid: Doomsday
by Tyrannolodon
Summary: An ancient foe of the Chozo returns to wreak evil upon the cosmos after the excursion of their last remnants and the demise of the Alimbics. Sequel to Sylux: Origins. Takes place one year after Zero Mission. Contains graphic violence, depictions of war crimes, and Language.
1. Chapter 1

One year after Samus' famous Zero Mission, tensions throughout the Galaxy were high. Full scale war between the Space Pirate Confederacy and the Galactic Federation had been going on for years, and was intensifying. The other superpowers of the cosmos, the Kriken Empire and the Vhozon Kingdom, were considering which side to join. In the mean time, the Cylosian Reich, which had gone through a resurgance as the Federation's war efforts against it began to falter, had formed an alliance with the space pirates and had the benefits of a lend lease plan with the Kriken Empire. Other Great Powers, such as the Ulumethean League, the Atralian Commonwealth, the United Likus States, the Hraphilian Republic, the Grand Duchy of Typhus, the Principality of Sytran, and others had either already chosen sides, or were considering.

But Aeons past, ten million years ago to be in fact, long before there was any such thing as a Galactic Federation or Space Pirate confederacy, there stood a great Chozo Empire. It was a proud and advanced nation, with a strong ethical code that preached compassion, understanding, and defense of the weak. It had powerful trade relationships with the Alimbic Empire, the spacebourne Luminoth, the Ylla, the N'kran, the Cybertronians, the Reticulan Heirarchy, the Diamonts, and other Hypersapients. In these times, the Hypersapients roamed and built nations that stretched across the universe while most of the species that dominated now were primitive proto-bipeds. But most of the hypersapients were free of arrogance, and they willingly shared their advances with their lessers. In careful moderation of course, lest they go farther than they can handle.

But there was one nation ruled by a species of Hypersapients that did not seek to coexist peacefully with it's neighbors. They were known...as the Xik'kri'vik. Sillicon based life forms from an incredibly distant homeworld, the Xik'kri'vik were a violent, fanatical, and utterly imperialistic race. Compared to the rather slow reproduction rates of their fellows, they were a fecund species, who did not undergo senility. Thus they always needed more territory, until evolution impressed upon them an imperialistic drive akin to the Krikens of today. They did not share the desire to coexist with the less advanced as equals, but sought to dominate and rule over them. The Chozo and their allies sought to temper their lust for land, but their ruler, Lord High Dominator Zyc'kra'val refused, for he was both an evil tyrant who hungered for more worlds to call his own, and he shared his race's deep envy of those other hypersapients who could transcend death. As the Lord High Dominator was seen as a living god and the mouthpiece for the Xik'kri'vik's bloodthirsty deities, the Xik'kri'vik obeyed his command absolutely.

And so began a war, a war between those who rallied behind the Chozo and fought for freedom, and those who flew the banners of the Xik'kri'vik dominion and dreamed of Tyranny. But the free league, outnumbered by the Dominion, began to lose hope, but for aeons they fought on, clinging onto the hope that justice would prevail. The Chozo's Great Watcher and leader of the time, Xa-kar, embarked on a ship that carried incredible advances in technology that would win the war for the free league. But as he embarked to the front lines, his ship was tragically lost in a hyperspace accident. Thus, his men were forced to fight on without him.

Despite the Xik'kri'vik's greater millitary culture, superior industrial base, and greater numbers, the Free League held out, and after nine million years worth of battle, they were able to force the Xik'kri'vik to the negotiating table. A treaty was signed, one that swore that neither of the factions would interfere in the other's business for as long as their kind remained to uphold it. A cosmos that for nine million years knew only the scourge of total war that saw whole galaxies scoured of life every day finally was able to rest. With this new age of peace and prosperity, the hypersapients entered a second golden age. But it was not to last, for as their populations were devastated by war and most swore to lower their reproduction rates lest they fall to the same greed for space that befell the Xik'kri'vik; most began to decline and fade.

The Luminoth continued to roam the stars, they would not settle on a world until long after humanity stretched to the stars, the Alimbics, now mostly kept to themselves in the Tetra Galaxy and it's neighbors while keeping their empire strong. The Diamonts lived peaceful, thoughtful lives, their culture thriving in their nation's beating heart of Mondreus. The Reticulans built a powerful empire and soon fell to the same xenophobic and imperialist evil that befell the Xik'kri'vik. In the year that the humans marked as 2012 on their calender, they invaded the planets Earth, Urtraghus, Vho, and Krike amongst others as part of one of their many expansion waves. But the old league reformed, and they repelled the Heirarchy, forcing them to sign a treaty that forced them to abandon their conquest of other sapient species. But even after this, most of the Hypersapients continued to decline, being phased out by the more fecund rising powers, especially by four species, Humanity, the Urtraghian Space Pirates, the Vhozon, and the Krikens.

One by one, tragedy befell many of the hypersapients, civil war beset the Cybertronians, the Alimbics were consumed and destroyed by Gorea save for a small enclave that was then wiped out by the superweapon known as Frank, the Luminoth fought a decades long war with the Ing, a mysterious tragedy wiped out all but one Diamont, and the Chozo were assaulted on all sides by an population too old to reproduce, Space Pirate and Kriken raids, the loss of Tallon IV to a leviathan seed, and the rebellion of Mother Brain.

But the Xik'kri'vik never underwent decline, instead...they grew stronger, they licked their wounds and built up their Dominion to a vast size. They looked upon the new races that had grew in their absence with eyes of contempt and envy. Contempt for their inferior nature that all but cried out to them to be "civilized", and envy for the worlds that they inhabited, worlds that they wanted for themselves. But the Xik'kri'vik waited until the league that had once fought them to a standstill was no longer in any condition to do so again. But that is not to say they were idle. They placed great sleeper cells all over the territory of their declining foes, dormant armies who would awaken when the time was right to spread the will of the Lord High Dominator.

Years passed without further incident, until word of the Alimbic's final demise and the flight of the Chozo came to them. Then the evil Zyc'kra'val ordered his soldiers to make their final preparations before they would begin their hell march to glory. To countless millions of galaxies, what they would bring...was Doomsday.


	2. First contact

Present day: Year 126,807, June 30th.

Samus Aran had been called to a meeting of hunters set by the Federation military on the planet Earth in the headquarters of the Federation military. Though she herself was not born on the home of humanity, it still had a sense of nostalgia to the young bounty hunter. As was typical for these military meetings, she had her armorsuit activated, atypically for these meetings, she brought all her upgrades upgrades, up to and including her ancient chozo upgrades. Her purple colored gravity suit reflected the light that shone upon her. The Earth unlike many homeworlds of Space faring had a well maintained environment, pollution had been more or less eliminated from human technology by the turn of the fourth millennium A.D.

This resulted in a pristine world with vast nature reserves, a true jewel of the Milky Way. Earth was considered by many to be next to Daiban in importance in the Federation, though many others disputed this, claiming that this is a highly humanocentric view. But for Samus, it was a home away from home away from home. She had a Condo on the earth, easily afforded due to the vast sums of money paid out to Bounty Hunters of her level. It looked out into the pristine fields of Ireland, where her ancient ancestors hailed from. But at the moment, she was in Amsterdam, where the Federation HQ had been built.

She walked through the building, earning herself many awed glances, many people not believing what they were seeing as she entered a huge hangar filled with people. Looking around to see such familiar icons of the business like Ghor, Rundas, Spire, Terridax, Executor, the new face of Gandrayda, and others she didn't recognize. Standing on a raised platform were important figures like her former CO, General Adam Malkovich, and Admiral Castor Dane along with other officials she didn't quite recognize. Samus was given a place of honor, standing in at the front.

Admiral Dane checked his personal datapad and saw that the meeting could now begin. "Right then, welcome. Now I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here. Well, over the years we've been experiencing a rapid loss of communication with systems that don't connect to any known nation or organized criminal group, mostly at the fringes of our borders on unexplored space. This loss in communication has been too systematic and rapid to be caused by any natural phenomenon in the universe, so we're suspecting it's the work an attack by some unknown foe. However all attempts at gathering intel have resulted in the scouting parties never returning home. However, it is my belief that you hunters, whom have proven useful in so many situations where the federation military was unable to succeed in, have a chance to finally pierce the veil. You are asked to find out whatever information you can about our newest enemies, and report back with your findings...dismissed." Dane stated, standing tall and proud with his arms folded behind his back.

Samus nodded and turned around to head for her ship, striding through the hallways of the federation headquarters. She soon reached her ship, parked away in a corner of the hangar. She quickly leapt up on top of her ship and was carried down it's lift entrance. The vessel's pivoting thrusters then swiveled around to it's rear side and carried it off with a great roar of flames, taking it out of the atmosphere of the Earth.

* * *

><p>Planet KRG-988c<p>

Field Marshall James Rodney, leader of the Galactic Federation 931st British Mechanized Army, had been deployed to some god forsaken hellhole out in the middle of nowhere in some backwards arse backwater of a city. He was part of the Federation Marine corps, sometimes derided as "Chromies" or "Jarheads", especially by the soldiers of the Federation army, but he regarded the Federation Army grunt as an altogether inferior creature, less well trained, less well equipped, generally worse at most everything.

This is exactly why he was wondering why he was deployed to this place, when some disposable army grunts could have done the job. He had heard talk of some new alien menace that was devouring the worlds of federation frontier worlds that were not on the border with any other known nation. But if one asked him, he would say that they were losing contact because their damned comm links broke because the lazy arse buggers here can't be bothered to fix their crap.

His turquoise visor looked out into the sandy landscape as he looked away from his datapad that kept all of his organizational information. But a message in his HUD flashed, warning him of unknown objects headed inbound to the planetary system. He scoffed, thinking that it was just some debris and not worth his time. But his scanners also blared some readouts that looked rather unlike those of any natural asteroid, comet, or known form of space junk. So he fetched an officer, Captain Lester Rhodes; whom he knew to be something of an expert in these matters.

"So Rhodes, can you tell me what the fuck I'm supposed to be bloody looking at?" James asked as he set his helmet, with a slightly raised peak and a two crossed batons in a wreath of oak leaves, with a crown abovebeneath it to indicate his rank as a Field Marshall on the table, revealing the gruff face of a man in his fifties with a well kept handlebar moustache. Rodney liked to fancy himself as the new General Montgomery, but most didn't quite see that quality in him yet. "Sir...those look like drop pods...but not of any sort I've ever seen..." Rhodes responded as he leaned in on the holographic display of the scanner.

"And what in God's name is that supposed to mean? But first, let me take a guess, we're going to be facing an attack by some enemy we've never seen before." Rodney asked, leaning back in his command chair a bit. "I'd say that would be about correct...best contact the other commanders on this planet, tell them to prepare. Now, I'd wager that these blokes are those aliens command was yakking on about." Rhodes answered, causing Rodney to stroke his chin. "Well then let's give these sons of bitches a good taste of British steel. Send them running with their tails tucked between their legs. I want every man and woman ready for action in the hour. And tell those fucking wankers in space to get their arses in gear and prepare to repel whatever the hell is dropping these Anklebiters." Rodney responded, authority ringing in his voice as he leaned back more fully into his chair.

He was confident in his ability to repel these alien invaders, after all he was commanding some of the finest men and women in the universe, a division that had thousands of years of history defeating all sorts of menaces, from space pirates, to Cylosians, to Krikens, to insurgents, and everything else one could imagine. He then took his helmet in the crook of his arm and placed it back on his head with a hiss of pressurized air before he stepped into a war room that was starting to come alive with activity. Officers had started to trickle in as the order was given to prepare the defenses, with some representatives from the Federation army and local militia and police forces. Also joining in were Federation Navy officials, who mostly appeared in holographic form. "So what's the ETA of the probable hostiles?" Asked one officer, this one with the rank of a Colonel. "Forty minutes, whatever craft launched them out launched them out at a long distance, but they're coming in fast." Responded an navy communications officer whose blue transluscent form showed that he was reporting in from a holographic projector.

"Right, I want a defensive perimeter set up around their likely landing site, I don't want any of them getting into the bloody cities. But if they're dumb enough to send in drop pods without naval support then we should have no problem dealing with these idiotic blokes." Rodney stated, using his right index finger to draw a perimeter shown in red around where the holographic display on the table showed the cluster of likely impact sites marked by red dots. "We have no idea what they're packing. For all we know they may have the tech to pull off a risky operation like this." Said one Army Brigadier who earned himself a glare from Rodney. "Oh bullocks, the only species with the tech to do this are either dead or nowhere near this area." Rodney responded, causing the Brigadier to roll his eyes beneath his helmet.

"You're overconfident Rodney. Just like you chromies always are." The Brigadier responded, frowning beneath his helmet. "Bleh, you army grunts are paid to die and hold the line for the marines to save the day. Not talk." Rodney shot back, but before any interservice bickering could be stated a message came from a navy officer. "We're detecting large capital ships inbound...looks like the enemy is bringing in their support..." She stated, worry filling her face as an aide informed her of the situation. But on the ground all they could do was wait.

* * *

><p>Captain Alice Whitmann was lying in her trench, having dug in and waited for forty minutes as the higher ups set up war plans. But for her, all she could do was wait...she could see Federation Capital ships lining up in low orbit from below, but she was soon distracted from this sight when an Olympus class battleship started to explode, the incoming drop pods ripping through it's shields and hull, rending enormous holes into it while fireballs blossomed outwards and the ship began to break apart to the shock and horror of the troops she was standing with. There must have been thousands on that ship, but these thoughts soon faded as the perpetrator of the vessel's destruction became apparent in the form of dozens of large flaming projectiles descending to the sandy dunes of the surface. Dozens of large objects streaked through the sky and slammed into the sand, slowing down somewhat, but still hitting with enough force to kick up some sand.<p>

She zoomed in with a control on her visor and looked out, seeing cylindrical structures that had four serpents that looked outwards on the points of the compass rose...but the serpents were quite obviously note those of Earth...at the center of their "heads" were single red colored gem like eyes, massive like those of a cyclops while about seven secondary eyes formed a circle around their larger cousins, the mouth was formed of somewhat elongated sideways facing mandibles while forward facing "antennae" rose from where a snake's inner ears would be. Then other structures rose to from the molten pits of sand that their landing created, these looking something like mesoamerican pyramids with great crescents atop them and four inward curving fins on their bottoms that contained dark colored singularities of some sort.

These floating buildings were huge, and what seemed to be entire regiments began to pour out of them, while other soldiers emerged from the smaller squat cylinders. She zoomed in to get a look at these creatures and saw something that could only be very vaguely called humanoid. Their faces were like those of the statues, though their mandibles were shorter, they wore some sort of strange armor that had an earthen yellow colour and texture. It made them resemble mesoamerican statues to some degree, but overall they were a spindly race. They held long stave like weapons that ended in brutal looking club like devices that had barrels in their center, apparently functioning as some sort of gun. They had four arms, two legs, and what seemed to vestigal stumps of wings. They seemed to be vaguely insectoid, but they clearly had little genetic relationship to anything that evolved on Earth.

One of them, seemingly a head taller than the rest, started giving orders to what appeared to be a squad of them as they began pouring out of their landing vehicles en masse while other war machines began to exit their transports. Four pronged containers that had four rings evenly spaced from each other in their middle with a front that had a head like theirs, only feral and elongated as if it belonged to some kind of beast from whatever world they belonged from. The maw opened up as if it were some kind of barrel, it's seemingly hollow insides glowed with a yellow light like the sun. It had no apparent method of propulsion or guidance but hovered along under it's own power nonetheless. It seemed to be some kind of artillery piece judging by it's size.

Then came large statue like bipedal walkers, with limbs thicker than pillars, four arms, fins that stretched up on it's shoulders and curved inward as if to capture the sun itself. Their heads were bestial in appearance, even relative to the absolutely alien look of these creatures. Escorting the infantry were creatures that looked like armored big cats with eight limbs and more feral versions of the base template of head that all these creatures seemed to share. Strange aircraft, some shaped like eagles with a more elongated version of the base template of head of these aliens, heavily built; suggesting that they were bombers, while others, that looked more mechanical and had a spool like body with a squashed head like a smoothed out clam head that had two inward curving forward swept wings, lightly built suggesting the role of fighters. Large, upright Serpent like mechanoids with heads like those on the sides of the transports that had arms shaped like smaller versions of itself jutting out of it's sides.

Triple pronged vessels that contained singularities that floated above the ground also floated forward, barely contained energies seeming hungry to devour their foes. Strange disks that resembled two blank orange juicer centers stuck together by their bottoms with two cog-gears connecting their middles while rotating in opposite directions also flew out. One of the lead aliens audibly chanted out "Ech'ooo'tah Kla'ran'tar!" As it extended wrist blade weapons with a voice that sounded partially digitized and ferally snarling at the same time. "Oh...this isn't good..." Said one army soldier next to her, exasperated at what he saw as the start of a very bad day. "We are about to get our arses spanked!" He concluded.

"Alright, Echo platoon, I want some bloody suppressive fire once they start massing. Bravo squad, get anti-air weapons, prioritize those Eagle bombers. Everyone else, hold your fire until they get within effective range, don't shoot even if they start firing on your positions until you are close enough to return effective fire. We have no idea where their vulnerable points are, so just aim for center of mass. I don't want to see any fucking headshots alright?" She ordered, putting her arm mounted assault rifle out on top of her entrenchment and waiting for the aliens to start firing.

Their fire came almost immediately, with the solar artillery sending yellow beams lancing out and cutting through the ramparts and cutting through the tops of the trenches, instantly vaporizing a squad of soldiers to Alice's left. The Federation tanks of the second armored platoon swiveled their turrets, the only portions of their lowslung bodies exposed to enemy fire with the rest shielded by a deep trench, and then fired off a salvo of energy sheathed high explosive rounds that burst forth from their barrels and exploded amidst a squad of alien soldiers, creating a quintet of fiery explosions and deafening shockwaves.

Frighteningly, many of the aliens were getting back up from shots that would have killed Armored Space Pirate Troopers. Red beehive patterned shields flashed briefly before disappearing as they stood back up and started to hold out their staves and fire out red bolts of energy that cut through the federation entrenchments and caused soldiers to be vaporized entirely. "Where is that damned mortar fire..." Alice muttered as she ducked beneath the trenches as she saw the armor around one of the huge Sun Idols' right arm fold up and retract backwards to expose some strange red tinted mechanisms that heralded the emerging of a huge yellow lance of energy.

This beam cut through the embankments and seared into Echo platoon's position, moving and incinerating the five grizzly tanks installed in there, causing the metal to buckle and then vaporize while the crew was disintegrated entirely. But a series of explosions blossomed all across the alien lines as Federation artillery began to fall down upon them, blowing some of their lighter units apart. "What are you idiots waiting for, tea and biscuits? Shoot the walker's fucking legs!" Alice ordrered through her comm links.

In truth the Federation's advantage of high ground was actually preventing their own vehicles from aiming at the legs of the powerful Sun Idols, leaving it up to the infantry. "Alright, second missile platoon, fire your missiles at the closest walker's legs...good luck!" She ordered, prompting no less than fifty Federation soldiers to rise slightly out of their entrenchments and half of their number to aim missiles at the Walker's legs. They began charging their missiles and got a lock on one of the lumbering Sun Idol's knee joints.

They fired off a flurry of no less than twenty charged anti-armor warheads that exploded against the walker's shielding, causing a brief enough failure in the shielding for the second barrage of missiles to smash into it's left leg and blast away some of the armor plating, with the third volley crippling that leg. But even as the Sun Idol fell on one hand, it raised it's right arm and opened up the armor plating on their to reveal it's solar cannon.

A river of deadly energy poured out and incinerated no less than two whole squads of Alice's men and women, but two brilliant thick blue beams of charged particles leapt out from the Federation lines and smashed into the Idol's hand as it aimed another shot, throwing off it's aim and causing some damage, allowing another volley of anti-armor warheads to slam into it's arm cannon and cause it to explode. The source of the laser beams, a Federation Havoc trooper, then let loose a flurry of a dozen Krak missiles that slammed into the Sun Idol's head and blew off huge pieces of it as a second pair of lasers and a barrage of energy sheathed heavy machine gun bullets pounded it's head and fried it entirely.

But the machine still had the power to fight, and aimed it's remaining arms and set them to firing mode, using some secondary sensors on it's fins to guide it's aim. One of it's remaining arms was destroyed by a second barrage of fire from the Havoc trooper, but the brave soldier was destroyed by another river of fire from the Sun Idol. But before it's remaining arm could fire, a railgun shell fired from a large stationary artillery cannon some distance away slammed into it's back and blew it apart, leaving only it's legs while it's upper body blasted apart in all directions.

The damaged legs slumped to the ground, smoking all the while. But there was no time to cheer, as the aliens were still approaching relentlessly. As the infantry got within range they let out an neverending stream of red bolts, cutting through defenses and soldiers alike while their own heavy weaponry struck out again and again. Alice fired her assault rifle and unloaded an entire clip into one of the infantry, but still it wouldn't fall, so she grabbed a grenade and lobbed it at the creature, blowing through it's shielding and allowing her to kill it with a second clip, eventually reducing it into a silvery pulp. But still they kept on approaching, slaughtering her troops as if they were nothing.

She fired off a clip while a heavy machine gun sent forth a brace of energy sheathed bullets, causing some of the alien infantry to backpedal somewhat when hit, but despite taking hits that would reduce space pirates into a gory pulp, they quickly recovered as the rounds had been deflected by their powerful shielding. "Focus fire! We aren't going to be taking a whole fucking lot of them down with us if we pick our own targets!" Alice shouted through her comm links, nodding as a chorus of affirmative answers came through. A trio of machine gun teams next to her aimed at and fired at the closest of the alien infantry; energy sheathed bullets slamming into it and causing it to backpedal constantly due to the force it was receiving. Then she and nine other marines started firing, sending more bullets into it, causing it's shields to fail after unloading their clips into it and then smash apart it's armor and break it's rocky body into stony chips.

But she saw another one of those sun cannons turning to aim towards her line and out of pure instinct, she started shoving her way through her lines, prompting those who could to follow her in running from their position as a yellow river of energy poured out and pierced through the fortifications like wet tissue paper and incinerating three marines. An anti-tank missile fired from a shoulder mounted launcher held by an army soldier smashed into the artillery piece, causing it to reel to the left as it's shields flared into existence. The loader behind him quickly slammed in another round which impacted again while some missile trooper marines let off with a brace of charged missiles that broke down it's shielding.

An round, sent screaming out of a barrel at obscene velocites and coated in energy was then sent screaming out of a tank barrel and punched through one of the sun cannon's rings and smashed through another, shattering both and destroying whatever field was keeping the energy inside contained. This resulted in it's power source failing dramatically with an explosion that roared out of it's now ruined cage and consumed no less than ten of the alien infantry. The tank then rotated it's turret around to fire off another shell at one of the cat-like mechanoids that was charging at the federation lines, letting loose several streams of intensely bright light energy that incinerated a trio of unlucky Army grunts.

But as the mechanoid leapt into a pounce, claws extended, a hundred pound metal shell coated by a field of penetrative energy that roared out of a barrel at well over mach 1000 rammed into the right side of it's "ribcage", smashing through it's shielding and causing the thing to explode into millions of superheated pieces no larger than a man's finger nails. The shell kept on going and cut through a sun cannon, causing it to fail dramatically and explode, wiping out it's escorting squad. Alice and her company let loose a whooping cheer as the vehicle, crewed by a famed and heroic team named the "Bee's Knees" who had seen continuous action since they were fifteen a good decade and a half ago. Their tank was well tricked out, given superior weaponry and armor than the average Grizzly MBT and a customized reactor that allowed it to produce a much greater amount of power.

The tank turned around and pumped another shell out of it's main gun, a sonic boom roaring out while small arms and heavy weaponry fire spewed from the federation lines. The shell impacted one of the bird-like bombercraft in the middle of it's left wing, tearing through it's shielding and completely obliterating it's wing along with a good portion of it's entire chassis. The Bee's Knee's other company members then occupied their defensive positions, having finally caught up to it after being deployed from the reserve. They swiveled their long barreled guns around and aimed at one of the huge sun idols, letting loose no less than twenty five hypersonic shells out and smashing into it's front, quickly stripping it of it's shielding before completely obliterating it's top half in a hail of shells.

Another volley sounded off, the earth shaking as their shells screamed out at hypersonic velocities before obliterating more of the aliens. As more reserve troopers began to be deployed and an artillery barrage from the tripled railguns of the juggernauts deployed far behind the front lines started pouring down into the battlefield, it really seemed that victory would now be in reach. Massive clouds of sand were kicked up into the air by the falling shells and bullets coming out while body parts and bits of machinery were flung in all directions, but still the enemy kept on coming.

A wing of stiletto class fighters appeared overhead, roaring in the skies above. But those odd floating disks that floated above the enemy lines began throwing out massive bolts of lightning that caused many of the fighters to erupt into flames. A second volley of lightning followed almost immediately afterwards, destroying the rest before they could even fire off a shot. A line of the huge sun idols was now advancing, going forward even as heavily concentrated fire brought them down one at a time and firing off rivers of yellow energy that sliced through the federation lines, cutting down the reserves while sun cannons and infantry followed behind them, providing a withering barrage of fire while the other strange weaponry of these odd aliens came into view.

All around her, there was death. A machine gun crew that stood next to her was hit by an barrage of red bolts and quickly vaporized into oblivion. Alice for a moment, briefly took over control of the machine gun, sending out a hellstorm of yellow energy coated bullets that brought down five weakened enemy infantry, but an red bolt of energy fired from one of their infantry men incinerated it. Their scarlet cloaks billowed out from behind them as they advanced, unafraid even as shells landed amidst them. A tank was hit in it's side by an explosive bolt of lightning fired from one of the eagle like bombers, causing it's turret to leap out of it's socket as a fireball rose from it's chassis. Even as she gunned down one of the ugly buggers with a point blank barrage from her arm gun, she knew the battle was lost. These aliens simply took such absurd amounts of punishment before dropping that overwhelming numbers of them could reach their carefully planned defensive lines.

An order then buzzed in Alice's comms. "Fall back! We're abandoning the world! They're breaching through our lines in all places! The Xirvan galactic cluster is being overwhelmed" Said the voice of General Rodney. In disbelief, Alice took a moment to shake her head before sending the order to the rest of her troops. "I got an order...we're pulling back..." she told her soldiers, who gave a glazed, defeated look as the alien infantry began to approach. After a brief moment of hesitation, they poured out of their trenches and began to flee to transport ships.

As she approached one, she saw General Rodney looking out as the Aliens began to rapidly overwhelm his lines. "I don't know who you buggers are...but mark my words...I will return..." Rodney vowed as a transport ship next to him was destroyed by one of the Alien Eagle bombers that raced over head and let loose several arcing rays of electricity that caused the vessel to leap upwards in a blooming fireball and a deafening boom. Alice gathered her remaining soldiers, watching as one of the alien fighters dived down and fired off a rapid burst of red energy bolts that clipped through many of her men, erasing an entire squad of them before pulling up to gut a federation Stiletto Fighter with a brace of energy bolt fire.

She boarded her transport vessel, whose defensive guns managed to chase away an incoming fighter while a trio of Stiletto fighters continued to pursue it, eventually downing it with a brace of missiles that brought down it's shields through weight of fire before ripping through it with a burst of energy coated explosive shells fired from their assault cannons. Her transport then touched off from the ground and flew to one of the Federation vessels that was taking it's turn to flee the system. She watched as Federation starships engaged in hopeless battles with more advanced alien ships that outgunned, out accelerated, and out armored their federation counterparts.

As soon as the word came that all the ships that this vessel could hold, the ship prepared for a hyperspace jump. The battleship stretched out into infinity and left the conquered world behind.


	3. Dark Machinations

Space above planet KRG-988c

In the cold halls of an alien vessel, Death Caste leader Xik'vil'rax looked on a holographic display that showed his force's rapidly sweeping through the Xirvan galactic cluster. Each world had an entire fleet dedicated to it's capture, and as soon as each fleet was done dealing with the world they were assigned to, they moved onto help with the conquest of the nearest one. It's strategy was working off marvelously, these...primitive wretches were simply no match for their vastly superior technology. "_Praise be unto, Zyc'kra'val, These feeble primitives, Are truly incapable, of even defending, against our might_." It's strange, droning, almost digital voice would have said were it speaking English. "_The great glorious, Xik'kri'vik, shall once more, be masters all, all shall hail, our great kind, as is intended, by the will, of the gods_." It continued, raising it's gaze to that of another one of it's kind, dressed in the outfit of normal infantry.

Xik'vil'rax was an extremely high rank of the death caste, and thus wore the armor for that caste. It was an odd combination of round and blocky in different places like the statues of ancient mesoamerica with that same earthen yellow color. Teal colored mechanics glowed between the main platngs where flexibility was needed while an evil teal colored gas slowly seeped from it's hips. It's four legs were splayed like those of a spider albeit thickened to support it's weight and ended in tips rather than feet, while it's four eight fingered hands emerged from it's shoulders, giving it's upper body some semblance of a humanoid body plan. It's head was sheathed in an armored hood shaped that was stylized so that it looked somewhat like some kind of alien bird opening up it's jaws. It's helmeted head was concealed behind some kind of eternal field of darkness contained in it's hood, impenetrable to those who looked at it from the outside. Scythe blades emerged from the outward sides of it's arms, giving it an appearance disturbingly reminiscent to that of the Grim Reaper from much of human folklore.

"_Prepare to advance, we won't stop, we won't rest, until we rule._" It ordered from the bridge of it's vessel, it's broad shoulders swaying with it's upper body slightly while it's lower body skittered across the stony interior of it's flagship's bridge. The tips of it's legs created a thudding noise as it walked away and it's followers prepared for a hyperspace jump while an occupation fleet arrived to absorb the world into the Xik'kri'vik dominion. The evil being allowed itself some small smug satisfaction, if all these human worlds were so easy to take...it's race would completely absorb what was the territory of the old Free League into their empire in no time. It's immense flagship then lead the rest of it's fleet into hyperspace.

* * *

><p>Sylux had only recently assumed his new mantle, but even then, he was now one of the most famous, or as some would say infamous, bounty hunters of all time. After defeating Frank for the final time, he quickly set out on more missions to strike out against the Federation and it's allies, destroying bases, stealing research, and shutting down expensive projects. He was becoming increasingly brutal in his work, crossing many boundaries he thought he never would have in what was but a few months ago. Kanden had in a way replaced Samus as his primary friend, though it goes without saying that he had no attraction to the insectoid behemoth like he did for the Chozo raised Irish warrioress. And Kanden was always egging him on to increasingly depraved acts, doing the exact opposite for him that Samus did. A small part of him cried out against what he did, that deeply buried part of him that still identified as Samuel von Sanders, the little naive orphan boy from Cylosis. But he ignored it.<p>

At the moment, his new ship, the Delano 7 glided through hyperspace, heading to a space pirate planet that was crying out with a barrage of distress signals, screaming into space for help against some unknown enemy. Sylux's ship finally exited back into real space, gliding into orbit around the planet, looking out as a space pirate fleet engaged in a desparate battle against some unknown foe whose vessels conjured up the aesthetics of the ancient mesoamericans. But the distress signal was coming from the planet, so he left the space battle alone for the moment and had his ship glide into the atmosphere of the planet, locked in an glaciation period much like one the earth underwent periodically.

His ship glided through the frigid air, descending and nearing a world embroiled in war. He looked down and saw large fireballs blossoming down on the surface below while black clouds of flak burst in the skies and bright rivers of energy lanced out from both sides. He had his ship continue to descend to get a closer look and possibly provide air support, but his scanners detected the presence of one of the Alien's smallcraft, a fighter from it's gracile looks, with two fin like inward curving forward swept wings and a pod shaped central chassis. The enemy craft was closing in rapidly, letting loose a brace of blue energy bolts that forced his ship into a sharp dive to evade as the ship pursued, displaying incredible agility.

Sylux had his ship's turrets and rear guns fire out to throw off the enemy ship before making a steep bank to the left, pumping out multicolored energy bursts while the enemy fighter spiraled out of the way in a left spinning turn, using it's rapid firing energy blasters to keep the pressure on the Delano 7. Sylux yanked back on his throttle to have his ship pull up into a nearly vertical climb to evade the incoming shots, calling on all his experiences as an ace pilot to deal with this obscenely maneuverable foe. The ship came in at a forty five degree angle, firing off energy blasts in an attempt to gut his fighter.

Sylux had his bottom turrets fire off a rapid barrage of comet like bursts of energy before pulling backwards to evade the incoming shots and letting loose with his top turrets, finally scoring some hits that caused it's blue beehive patterned shielding to flare into existence. The enemy fighter then spun out into a dive, letting loose a barrage as it did so and hitting the Delano 7 in the side, causing it's much less ornate shielding to flare as it defended the vessel. Sylux had as many of his turrets as possiblefire off a broadside that slammed into the front of the enemy fighter causing it to buck around a bit while Sylux had his ship bank around and fire off a brace of air to air missiles that slammed into the enemy fighter's tail and caused it to spin around end over end before Sylux released another flurry of guided explosives, hitting it with at least half a dozen that broke it's shielding before ripping the ship apart.

Sylux then grinned under his helmet as his ship's computer added another mark to his kill tally before resuming his original mission. He caught sight of some vaguely eagle shaped craft that must have been bombers judging by their more cumbersome appearances and dove down before he let loose a full barrage of frontal firepower from his ship's many guns and beam emitters before firing off a brace of missiles that slammed into the trio of bombers and broke through their shielding after above three seconds of continous firing and caused their chassis to erupt in flame.

Three more to his kill tally Sylux thought before a huge river of yellow energy missed his ship by what must have been only a few feet, causing his scanners to pinpoint the origin point of the enemy fire, his holographic systems bringing a huge multi-limbed walking statue into view, one of it's arms aimed at him and charging up another solar blast. Sylux then jinked downwards as suddenly as possible, the ship shuddering from the violent maneuver as it ducked under a second river of energy. His descent brought him into range of small arms fire and soon blue bolts of energy in their multitudes leapt out at his ship, impacting his shielding and briefly stunning his weaponry. At this point Sylux determined that he needed to get out of here, waiting for his ship's weaponry to come back online before releasing a brace of cluster munitions upon the offending infantry.

They seemed to vanish under a carpet of blossoming fireballs and deafening explosions, but when visibility was returned, he could see many of the hundreds of infantry he bombed getting back up as if they had only been pushed down while another lance of energy leapt out at his ship fired from one of the colossal sun idols, it smashing into his shielding and sent his vessel spinning, rolling in the air before leveling out as he got a dismal report from his ship's shielding.

Convinced that the situation was too hot for his ship to handle, he decided to flee to space pirate lines, those guns of his that could firing out behind him and blasting some infantry apart before he flew out of range and landed in the nearest safe location he could, his ship touching off into the muddy ground while an oppressive overcast grey sky with dark clouds hang heavy overhead. He collected his thoughts, thinking about what he was about to get himself into before he would head out.

* * *

><p>Samus had deployed with the hunters Terridax, Executor, Ghor, Rundas, and Gandrayda to the planet Vesper-80c, a world evenly divided between the Federation and the Vhozon after receiving a plea for help that seemed like it might give them a lead on the nature of what was causing this current crisis. When their vessels exited hyperspace one after the other, they were confronted with a beleaguered world, one whose conditions mimicked that of the Triassic's, a huge supercontinent whose coast lines were lush and fertile while the interior was comprised of a vast and arid desert with a measly 14% oxygen atmospheric content. This made most chemical reactions sluggish, fires were easily put out, explosions had less "oomph", breathing was harder, all sorts of nasty problems. The Vhozon claimed the colder regions of the world, leaving the federation to the warmer parts of it.<p>

These conditions favored those with great lung ability, most of the animals here had both diaphragms and air sacs, giving them some of the most efficient respiratory systems imaginable. This wasn't too much of a concern to Samus, one side-effect of her Chozo genetics were the development of air sacs for her lungs, allowing her to extract much more oxygen with every breath than a normal human. So even if she was somehow forced to wander the world without her suit, she would be quite fine. She could see some explosions billowing out on the surface of the world, visible from space. This was an obvious sign that the conflict on the ground was of a huge scale. Still, she and her colleagues pressed onwards, sailing through the atmosphere before touching down at the command post from which the distress call had been issued.

Their ships touched down on landing pads and they soon exited them, save for Ghor whose armorsuit functioned as his ship. They quickly moved out to the command post where they saw commanders from both nations and the local militias pouring over readouts, issuing commands, shouting orders over commlinks. It was pure chaos to say the least. Soon, a federation field marshal looked up, looking at the new arrivals "Ah you're here." He said, the man of obvious Arabic descent stated as he looked at his view field. "The situation, by the all merciful God, is dire to say the least. We're trying to hold out for reinforcements, but we're cracking in many places. I am pleased to see that some of the best hunters have answered my calls. But I can only pray that God favors us with some more blessings." He said as he looked at the holographic display, showing the enemy advances in green while the Vhozon were shown in purple and the federation was shown in blue. The united Federation and Vhozon were holding out on the northern side of the super continent while the aliens were pushing in from the south.

"Field Marshal Emir, we have word that Field Marshal Rodney's forces are approaching." Reported an aide, causing the man's expression to brighten considerably. "Ah! This is the best news I've heard all day! But...then what happened to their sector?" He asked, turning to the aide. "We lost all contact...we're assuming that they pulled out after being overwhelmed." The woman responded, causing Emir's mood to dampen. "Ah...that is unfortunate...but reinforcements are reinforcements...anyone else approaching?" He asked, keeping his dark brown eyes focused on her. "Admiral Dane and General Malkovich are leading another relief fleet. Also, General Howard Ackerman and Admiral Charles Nemens are leading a second fleet. They'll be arriving soon. The Vhozon report that they're sending two reinforcement fleets of their own." She answered, causing excitement to brew amidst those gathered inside the command post.

"Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! With these new forces we can finally bring in a counterattack and push these invaders back! We'll of course start with this world before starting a general counteroffensive through this galaxy and try and requisition as much reinforcement as we can get! We'll have our first victory against these hellspawn here! Send word of this wondrous news to the men!" He answered, a smile forming on his face, believing that he would become a hero by winning a battle against these seemingly unstoppable foes.

"Of course, this makes your job easier, but it will still be difficult. You'll be joining the hunters Noxus, Spire, Irkan, and ZR-88 who are working with the Vhozons. They're on the front lines as we need every man we can get there, but with your arrival perhaps we can send you out to do what you really excel at, behind the front lines commando missions. We'll have you strike one of these sprawling base complexes and hopefully destroy it." He said, pointing to a city like complex on the map, causing the holographic display to zoom in on it, showing a complex that stood tall and defiant with many connected circular ziggurats upon which the aliens walked, looking out into the distance while what appeared to be huge reactors glowed as the guards overlooked mining operations.

"If you can destroy it, it may put enough of a dent in their on field supply chain to cause them to waver. We'll try and neutralize as much of their anti-air capabilities as possible so that you can fly there rather than walk. Good luck, and may God be with you." The Field Marshall concluded, prompting Samus to nod before turning back to her ship along with her colleagues. "I see you went and took that bisection to upgrade yourself...of course improving from nothing isn't that much of an improvement..." Rundas snarked at the large Executor, causing the transforming mechanoid to snarl in response. "Shut up small fry..." He responded as he boarded his ship and took off while Ghor simply flew into the air. "Was that really necessary Rundas?" The hugely built Terridax asked as his massive mechanical frame stepped into his vessel. "Hey, it was just a joke." Rundas answered as he entered his ship and flew into the air.

Soon, the whole hunting party was airbourne and covered the vast distances of the interior landscape rapidly. Miles upon miles of desert passed before they finally came upon the front lines, where entrenched Federation and Vhozon troopers were trying their best to stymie an offensive. They landed as close to the action as was safely possible and exited their vessels, soon encountering the four hunters they were told to rendevouz with. Irkan was an massive twelve foot tall piscine creature whose angler-fish like face was in Samus' mind, ugly enough to be a weapon unto itself. His powered armorsuit somewhat resembled a hard diver suit, except of course it was keeping the amphibious creature wet rather than dry. His armor had been set to a sandy brown to help blend in with the environment while he lugged around an reaper autocannon, a huge double barreled weapon with a caliber of 90mms, this one having been redesigned to be a railgun, as if it were an ordinary rifle. General purpose machine guns sat on both shoulders while two light machine guns were stuck to each wrist, these hands being encased in massive armor, suggesting that they were power fists.

ZR-88 was bulky to say the least, with a massive black mechanical body that had some silver portions, but it was fairly humanoid, though it's "face" largely consisted of a black visor through which a red dot raced back and forth and a mouthplate. Spiked antennae flared from the sides of it's head while it callibrated it's huge wrist cannons, checked the two also large handheld cannons on it's back, briefly retracted it's hands to reveal arm cannons, checked on it's shoulder guns, callibrated it's hip cannons, made a quick check up on two massive weapons the size of artillery guns on his back lying somewhat below his more pistol like handheld cannons on his back, and even showed off it's chest mounted weapon a bit.

"Took you long enough..." Spire muttered as he looked out behind him, taking a brief moment from firing some magmaul blasts that lit one of the alien warriors on fire, causing it to start panicking and running around, where it was quickly cut down by a brace of heavy machine gun fire. "Well...since you are here, would you mind helping?" Noxus asked as ZR-88 took out what must have been the equivalent of an minigun for something of his size and began to fire, each shot roaring out before blowing one of the aliens to a pulp while blue bolts of plasma seared forth from his right shoulder cannon and massive missiles leapt out of his left, obliterating some more of the Aliens and kicking up huge clouds of dust while braces of judicator fire sprang forth from the trench lines, forcing the Aliens to seek cover and fire their own staff blasters from behind this protection.

"Let me show you how it's done..." Irkan gargled out as he took out his autocannon and began firing, seven hundred and twenty energy sheathed rounds coming out of his two autocannon barrels at hypersonic velocities every minute. The shells were flung out of his barrel with no sound other than the sonic boom of their passing before they pierced through and then promptly disintegrated many of the aliens and tore through their direct fire solar cannons and light mechanoids. Three of the feline shaped mechanoids made themselves visible, and were rewarded for this effort by about six metal spikes that rammed through them at obscene velocities and promptly caused the majority of their bodies to explode into stony chips.

ZR-88's faster firing weapon created a nearly continuous stream of tracer rounds fired out of the railgun weapon while hundreds of rounds sprang forth from the barrels every second. If it were not for his sheer size and strength, the recoil of the gun would have probably knocked the huge machine on his aft plate. But this barrage of fire, combined with that from his shoulder and chest mounted weaponry suppressed the aliens while kicking up huge clouds of sand. "Like shooting fish in a barrel, hoo ha! Come on, do you feel lucky punks?" ZR-88's deep, booming, digitized voice blared as he erased an Alien squad from existence, only to be forced back as his shields flared into existence following the impact of a river of energy from a solar cannon.

Ghor incinerated the solar cannon with a flurry of missile strikes followed by a huge lance of molten energy that sprang forth from his chest mounted thermo plasma cannon, melting the device and it's escorts into rapidly boiling puddles of lava that turned the sand into glass before they hovered close to the ground as silicate vapor. Ghor then joined this barrage with his twin gatling arm cannons, sending out huge streams of power beam shots while his plasma cannon let loose with it's own fearsome beam and missiles streamed forth from his shoulders, slaying a squad of infantry immediately as he rolled into position in a trench of the right depth for him.

Terridax's shoulder mounted plasma chain guns let loose constant barrages of large green spheres of highly electrified gaseous material contained in magnetic energy bottles, incinerating all they touched as he raised his cylindrical clawed ebony arms. He then transformed the claws arranged around the barrel like ends of his arms in a circular into the ends of barrels as he converted them into gatling cannons and started to spin his cylindrical hands. This heralded the firing off a stream of power beam shots that kicked up huge clouds of debris and pushed back those invaders he hit. In the mean while, he firing out matter stripping beams from the barrels of his arms; drawing debris, ground, and if possible, ripped apart pieces of the aliens as their shields were leeched of energy before their bodies were torn apart like matter falling into a black hole as the green beams pulled at them. Machines inside of him converted the matter he had drained into ammunition for his missile launchers, letting out a stream of arcing projectiles that detonated in the faces of the aliens and their machinery, blasting away at shields before destroying them all together. He then used the three clawed prongs mounted on his back behind his horizontally aligned elongated triangular head to propel explosive orbs, using them as an artillery cannon to blow apart whole fire teams of the enemy at a time.

Rundas extended his hands as he sought cover and let out streams of freezing cold, using them like flamethrowers that froze instead of burn, encasing the creatures and their weapons of war in ice, allowing the others to shatter them. Executor grabbed his two hand held cannons, weapons as long as a man that the deceptive construct could hold like pistols before extending his shoulder and wrist mounted weaponry. Soon a barrage of missiles, plasma blasts, and fusion bolts streamed forth from him, scything down those who had still not caught on to the hint that they should be taking cover with broad sweeps of firepower. Samus simply took what cover she deemed necessary and let loose with a near continous outpouring of beam fire. The combined power of the long, charge, ice, wave, and plasma beams created lethal rapid fire white bolts that could break down the shields of the enemy with far more rapidity than most federation man portable weaponry, though to the enemy's credit they were taking far more hits to drop than any other grunts she has fought, and those hits she and the others were taking were dealing a good deal more damage than any other commonly issued weapon she had ever encountered.

Noxus and Spire pooled their fire together, using their affinity weapons to great effect, though compared to the other hunters they were rather slow to bring down even one target. "Samus, send us your upgrade data! Otherwise we won't be able to pull our own weight!" Spire called out, causing the bounty hunter to nod before sending the data to their modular shielding and armor, weapons, transportation, and alt mode systems. The two looked at their now more purple color schemes and gave approving nods before rejoining the fight, once again using their affinity subweapons, this time combined with the beams they had acquired, though Spire's magmaul was incompatible with the ice beam, Ghor had generously offered his Thermal beam to compensate, giving his weapon greatly enhanced burning ability.

Gandrayda decided to finally make her contribution, taking Samus' form in a purple flash of electric light before sweeping forth a massive multicolored river of energy with a huge white core that sweeped away the scattered remnants of the aliens in this sector. Detecting no enemy life signs, the hunters stopped firing, their heated weapons releasing huge amount of heat distortion waves save for Samus, Noxus, and Rundas for reasons that should be obvious. And odd ease settled into the ten before congratulations began to be passed around. "Every single enemy within a five kilometer radius has been killed thanks to us." Noxus reported, checking his long ranged scanners. "My kill tally's going to get some sweet loving today if we keep this up." ZR-88 announced his tone joyous and merry as he noted that he had killed enough enemies to account for at least a battalion. "So much for their invincibility..." Irkan chimed in as his massive gun began to cool.

"_+I saw the whole thing on our camera link, good work. Though the enemy didn't have any heavy weapons in that sector and most of the soldiers you killed were of the most basic and weakest variety. Many of them will be a lot tougher than that. But still, a blessing is a blessing. Now, head out to that complex!+_" Said the voice of Field Marshall Emir over the comlink. This prompted the hunters to summon and retreat to their ships to the cheers of Federation soldiers, while their Vhozon allies, being a more reserved people, generally remained quiet save for gracious nods.

The sight of explosions in the distance while sonic booms screeched indicated that Federation Juggernaut MKIII walkers were commencing a huge artillery barrage that smashed many anti-air sites and installations into slag, debris, and dust. Using this cover fire, the hunter's ships sped off to their destination while shells and energy spheres crashed all around them, racing around anti-aircraft fire, flak bursts, and throwing off the occasional missile while Federation smallcraft and long ranged anti-air systems did their best to prevent interception. They approached the huge complex, which was now quite obviously a city. "They must be bringing in colonists!" Ghor snarled through his commlinks

"Yeah, well let's give them a good taste of what our corner of space has to offer." Executor responded over his comm links as his ship blasted it's own landing zone into the ground, initiating a withering hail of fire from the other gunships as they cleared out the immediate area before dropping them off and activating their cloaking fields. Executor drew out his hand held cannons and retracted his shoulder mounted weaponry and extended his wrist guns, prompting the more heavily built ZR-88 to respond in kind. Soon, every hunter was bringing out whatever heat they were packing.

Now that they were at the complex, Samus could see not all of the buildings were connected. Turrets that contained larger versions of the infantry's staff blasters, great towers with four faces aligned to the compass rose, the cylindrical transports, mining facilities, massively tall structures that seemed to serve as both temples to whatever gods these aliens worshipped and as aircraft hangars, and square shaped fortresses from which four great stone heads swiveled on turreted mounts at the corners while smaller turrets rotated around searching for prey. Even the city was well defended, large numbers of turrets and infantry were patrolling it constantly, keeping a constant and wary vigil, which was aptly demonstrated when an ornate turret swiveled around and upward to fire at a small bird, reducing it into a puff of feathers with a pair of green bolts.

"So...anyone have any ideas as to how we're going to get past all of that?" Ikran asked, fingering the trigger of his reaper autocannon as he had a look see over a boulder he was hiding behind. "It appears that blasting our way in is out of the question...I suggest an alternative...more stealthy approach." Terridax motioned, his utterly inhuman non-face unfixing in it's stare towards the base. "Yeah, and we certainly picked world class team for subtlety." Rundas muttered, causing a disapproving glare from Spire to materialize. "What? Take a look around, less than two of us are under seven feet tall. Most of us are built for bulldozing through defenses and combative exploration, not sneaking in." He continued, pointing out what seemed to be a deficiency in stealth.

"Perhaps there is a way to get around our apparent lack of stealthy abilities." Ghor said as he exited his armor suit, stroking it like one would do with a noble steed, his voice changing tone considerably to an altogether more intellectual and becalmed one. "All we need...is a distraction." He continued before starting on revealing what he had planned out.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: I profusely apologize for the delay in the publication of this chapter. I do my writing in spurts, and the end of my vacation made it difficult for me to find the time to write. Now you are probably expecting some form of commentary, so I will oblige. I will go out and state that yes, Metroid: Doomsday is indeed a sequel to Sylux: Origins and takes place in the same universe, though I worked within the defined constraints of the Metroid Universe and tried to make it look like something that could be canon rather than simply indulging my fanon as many others do.<p>

As the Metroid Universe is one of the most nebulously defined settings I have ever seen, utterly lacking in the huge body of canon material that things like Warhammer 40,000, Transformers, and Star wars possess with their expanded universes or the rather rigidly structured rules of the setting in Homestuck (this is not to say I dislike these bodies of work, I actually enjoy all five immensely and am rather immersed into their fandoms) it gave me both an incredible degree of freedom to write and also forced me to rely upon a lot of what many dub "headcanon."

Now for a distinction between headcanon and fanon. Headcanon is speculation that fills the gaps between official material, it is neither confirmed nor denied by the work and typically would make some sense within the internal logic of the official material, like saying that for example, John Egbert is 5'2. Fanon directly contradicts the official material or disregards certain portions of it, such as those star war fans who act as if the prequel trilogy never happened or the somewhat annoying tendency of shippers to disregard the official sexualities of characters for the purposes of their material. Now before this turns ugly I am going to end this rant on shipping before it begins. _*proceeds to ship John Egbert and Rose Lalonde while no one is looking.*_

With regards to the Metroid Manga and Metroid Other: M, the two most contentious additions to the Metroid Lore, I shall say this. As the Manga is of somewhat dubious canonocity I have decided to cherry pick certain aspects of it. The ages for Samus, the names of the Zebes Chozo, the origins of Mother Brain, the politicians Keaton and Vogl, and Samus' two rather obnoxious alien friends...they'll be used. I see no reason for these to be disregarded as they don't run contradictory to the main body of lore from the 2D and Prime series.

The little tidbit about Metroids being created in Samus' lifetime though? That I'm going to ignore as silly, as the Chozo never came into contact with the planet Phaaze even in their prime, much less when they were deep in decline by the time of Samus' birth, it makes the well established presence of Metroids on Phaaze near impossible to reconcile with the Manga's theory.

As for Metroid Other: M, I personally found it to be a game that had the misfourtune of merely being decent in a series that is expected to produce masterpieces. It stands well on it's own, but even in comparison to Prime: Hunters, it falls rather flat. I don't outright hate it like many do, but I don't love it either. Besides, Other: M takes place after Super Metroid, and this story takes place only a year after Zero mission, meaning that the entire prime series, metroid 2, and super metroid all come between Doomsday and Other M, thus meaning that for the purposes of Metroid: Doomsday, Other: M's story events are wholly irrelevant.

As for Other: M's portrayal of Samus...I'm sure it would have been more stomachable if they picked a voice actor who could...I don't know...act? The Voice Actor they chose always sounded bored, and for Pelor's sake the freaking android displayed ten times the emotion with a tenth of the lines. Dull Surprise indeed. I know this kind of runs contrary to my whole stance on Fanon, but I think I'll pass on tying myself down to Other: M's Iron Woobie of a Samus Aran.

The inspiration for the Xik'kri'vik, I shall admit, came from the Cuotl Faction of the obscure RTS game Rise of Nations: Rise of legends, which I am sure that pretty much none of you have ever heard about, much less actually played. But I am making an effort to try and differentiate them from their creative source.

And for the probably small but...erm...slightly manic group of people who have decided to take up the flag of the Samus/Sylux pairing whether due to my work or not (probably not...I doubt I have that much influence on your pairings...hopefully anyway...) I shall say this...well it's better from an anatomical standpoint than the Ridley/Samus pairing...I'll give it that. :V

Now, farewell until I write my next chapter.


	4. Evil tides

Planet Chiron, Alpha Centauri system

Minister of the treasury Jacob Boyle eased himself into his chair. A man of an incredibly mixed European ancestry, he was the highest ranking galactic federation federal government official on neither Earth nor Daiban. He eased himself into his leather chair and took a moment to remember the history of Chiron. Humanity's first extrasolar colony founded by a United Nations sleeper ship expedition launched in the 1990's, an large explosion killed most of the thrusters and the ship's captain was murdered, thus the population split into seven factions who each comandeered colony pods and claimed separate parts of the planet as their own. Thus Chiron was once a wild world divided by war, whose native population of mindworms and xenofungus were every bit as deadly to the colonists as the threat of war amongst themselves. Things got further complicated when discontent amongst the original seven and the emergence of new leaders caused the rise of five more factions, complicated further still by the arrival of two factions of aliens who were known as the progenitors while the factions were known as the Manifold Usurpers and Manifold Caretakers whose plans revolved around the world's neural network of xenofungi. Eventually, the Morgan Corporation prevailed through superior economic might and an key set of alliances with three others, the Spartan Federation, the Peacekeepers, and the University of Chiron and the friendlier of the two factions of aliens known as the Manifold Caretakers. So by the time that Earth finally established contact with the colony long after it had developed hyperdrive technology by reverse engineering the technology of the Heirarchy following it's invasion they found a thriving world that had established trade relations with nearby aliens and had set up it's own colonial empire using rediscovered technology from the aliens.

Chiron was probably the most important human dominated world outside of the Solar System, it was wealthy, well developed, and it had a rather harmonious relationship with the planet's wildlife. After all, having mindworm swarms drill into one's skull to devour and lay eggs in your brain wasn't exactly good for business. In the case that the planet's hive minded ecosystem decided to unleash it's wrath upon the settlers, a well trained, prepared and equipped response force would quickly put down the outbreak. Of course, by now the technology existed to keep the world pacified. Erebus was perhaps the first example of a truly living planet, though it was less a case of the planet itself a living organism from birth than it was a particularly successful species of colony based organism managing to form a planet wide network. This network had great psychic power with it and thus the wildlife acheiving sapience every hundred million years. But this sapience would always come just too late to prevent the massive diebacks caused by the flowerings that lead up to the achieving of sapience, causing the newly sapient world to revert back to a semi-sapient dreaming state.

The presence of civilization construction sapient life forms added a very unusual aspect to the cycle and greatly accelerated it. But with the help of the progenitors, humanity was able to stop the cycle with the Manifold caretakers, though convincing them to alter their view point on humanity and look upon their presence upon Chiron more favorably took a lot of convincing and only occurred over a process of hundreds of years. But of course, now the two races lived in harmony, and helped prove that interspecies friendships could be built, which greatly helped the starfaring human race form an alliance with the progenitors that lasted even unto this day, a deep friendship existing between the two peoples. Funny, when one considers the alien nature of these new invaders, with reports on their nature having finally sifted to the ears of the federation. Jacob himself was in the middle of a video conversation with a female minister of education in her eighties named Ramona Jaylee, whose age most definitely did show, indicating that she refused age postponing and reversal treatments, speaking to her to voice his opinions even though he was not able to attend the latest meeting on Daiban.

"Ramona, I have the utmost confidence that the Federation will prevail over these...alien invaders in the end. After all, are we not the strongest power in the cosmos? Our economic might is unmatched, and it shows in our conflicts with the Space Pirate Confederacy, the Kriken Empire, and all those other, lesser powers." Jacob told his colleague in a boisterous, friendly manner that practically dripped with confidence and a brimming pride in his nation.

"Jacob, we cannot afford to let our guard down, we know nothing about this enemy's economic system, it's strength, it's culture, or heck; anything about them in any great amount of detail them at all. We are talking about an enemy that has managed to isolate and cut off entire galactic clusters at a time far faster than any power we have known has every been able to manage." She responded, a frown forming on her aged face, deepening the grooves of many wrinkles. "Ramona...have faith in our government's abilities. I have the utmost confidence in the ability of our military and our people to prevail. I guarantee you that they do not have our fighting spirit, our willingness to lay down our lives for our values and worlds, or our unrivaled economic prowess. We will pull through this." Jacob responded, using the kind of fiery, energetic rhetoric that one typically only saw in public speeches. The kind of rhetoric that would come off as silly and overdramatic when used in a personal one on one conversation.

"Well Jacob, I hope you're right. We're currently being pushed back on all fronts that we're engaging the enemy in and haven't won so much as a single skirmish for an asteroid. They bypass and cut off all our strong points and head straight for relatively soft targets before mopping up the stronger positions with reinforcements. It's like they were handed an up to date datapad with every scrap of detail about our weaknesses." She continued, her already stern expression only intensifying in it's seriousness. "What are you suggesting?" Jacob asked, leaning forward in his chair and focusing his stare. "I'm suggesting that they must have done a lot of intelligence work for a very long time. This invasion must have been very well planned out and very well prepared. It's like those old Cybertronian incursions of the 20th and 21st centuries and the Heirarchy invasion back in 2012. I could even compare it to a combination of Pearl Harbor and Operation Barbarossa. They must have some kind of spy network, deeply rooted into our infrastructure." She concluded, leaning forward slightly in her seat.

"Really? I had guessed at the enemy having done some intelligence work...but a spy network? Oh I can see the witch hunts gathering already." Jacob bemoaned, leaning back almost the same distance that Ramona leaned forward. "These are strange times Jacob...I have a feeling that everything we know is about to change..." Ramona sighed out, looking slightly away from Jacob. "It's been nice talking to you Ramona...but now I need to sign out and take care of some things." Jacob informed his colleague, pressing a button on the device that had kept the two of them in contact that caused the visuals to blink out, leaving the politician alone in his office one again.

* * *

><p>Gunnery Sergeant Bragg sat in his commander's seat within the bowels of his Grizzly main battle tank which itself was driving through a wooded area, escorted by Chimera IFVs and other assorted vehicles, moving in a convoy that was moving to reinforce a position elsewhere on the planet of Vesper 80-c. The coasts of Vesper-80c were some of the only areas on the planet where trees sprouted up in great numbers. This made the coasts some of the worst spots on the planet for armored warfare, in stark contrast to the interior of the supercontinent which was primarily arid and flat desert for miles and miles, perfect tank country. While the vehicles were more than capable of simply running over most trees and their shots could pierce the plants in the dozens without any appreciable loss in momentum, the big kicker was the loss in visibility. While there were other sensor systems that could bypass the trees, few things could replace the benefit of being able to see your target with your own eyes. That's what Bragg thought anyway.<p>

He preferred the Grizzly to other tanks used by the federation, like the lighter Hunter tank used as the army's main battle tank, the heavier Predator and Russ tanks used as the heavy tanks of the Army and Marines respectively, the Mammoth and Devastator tanks used as the superheavies by again the Army and Marines, and the huge bunkers on tracks that were the Apocalypse and Ragnarok class ultraheavy tanks of the army and marine corps once again. He didn't even consider the Scorpion and Tick class LBTs in this equation, much less the rather aptly named Mosquito and Fireant tankettes. The Hunter tank was generally inferior to the Grizzly in most every way with the exception of cost and weight, no way he'd drive it. The Predator and Russ tanks were admirable vehicles who could tear through lesser vehicles with ease, but in his opinion they were rather too distinctive, and a little too slow. The Mammoth and Devastators were rolling juggernauts of death, that could not be put into doubt, but they were also noticeably slower than the Grizzly and a good deal bigger, not suited to any sort of terrain that would have confounded the Tiger Tanks of yore. As for the Apocalypse and Ragnarok...well...fat chance that a sergeant like him would ever get to be at the command helm of one.

The mechanized force that his corps was moving in was a purely marine corps force, a force that some one thousand vehicles that could be classified as tanks of varying weight categories, two thousand infantry fighting vehicles, about five hundred self propelled artillery pieces, two hundred fifty anti-aircraft vehicles, two hundred fifty assault guns, two hundred fifty other assorted vehicles, and five hundred scout vehicles would call home. The proud men of the 333rd Chironian armor corps. They were rumbling their way towards some fight in the distance, the roar of tracks, the soft hum of hover vehicles, the clanking of walkers, all moving to help drive the enemy from a major settlement. The plan, as bragg understood, would call for linking up with another marine armored corps and four army corps, a force of roughly three hundred thousand men that would be bolstered by ten infantry armies and four artillery armies, a whole army group of about 1,000,000 men. This in turn was backed by two other army groups, forming Army Region A, a stupendously massive force of 3,000,000.

He felt a bit sorry for the enemy. Not many enemies could take on the force of an entire Federation Army Region when they concentrated onto one objective. Especially not when they were supported by about a hundred fifty Colossi; huge, massively well armed walkers of such imposing power that being in command of one was about as close to being a god on the ground battlefield as the Federation could get. Also supporting were a hundred and fifty Behemoths, roughly the same size as Colossi, but eschewing limbs in favor of more conventional tracks and hover systems. One hundred fifty colossi, one hundred fifty behemoths, some forty five thousand tanks, at least one hundred sixty thousand infantry fighting vehicles, thirty thousand scout vehicles, thirty thousand artillery pieces, fifteen thousand assault guns, fifteen thousand ground based mobile anti-aircraft vehicles, fifteen thousand other specialist vehicles, and almost two million infantry. All of this was supported by legions of supply drones, no less than a hundred thousand aircraft, and would be given whatever support from orbital forces that the embattled fleet could provide.

It wasn't often that a city whose population wasn't over ten million would be the recipient of so many men at arms. But as the quality of the aliens gave them an force multiplier that was at the very least tenfold when compared to their federation equivalents, compounded by the fact that virtually all nonessential and nondefensible worlds within the galaxy that Vesper-80c dwelled in had their defenses stripped so that the defenders could stand a ghost of a chance on those worlds that actually mattered whether due to economic or strategic reasons and were in any way defensible, neither manpower nor cause were in short supply. But the initial confidence that Bragg had soon melted away as the thought of having to fight for every inch of enemy territory reared it's ugly head. He tried to console himself with the knowledge that a Vhozon army region had also been formed to provide reinforcements, thinking as his vehicle's autopilot brought it into the position his superiors deemed necessary for the deployment as it neared it's final stages of completion, joining a vast sea of men and materiel who were all preparing for a showdown with an enemy whose strength was virtually totally unknown. Eventually, he succeeded in banishing the thought of a slow, ugly war from his mind, and focused on his objective.

* * *

><p>Space Pirate World: Kravlar-9<p>

Sylux's ship touched down on the war torn surface of the planet and it quickly lowered out it's armored bundle of germanic sociopathy on it's bottom entrance elevator which crushed the gravel of the mountainous terrain beneath it somewhat. A wave of pressure slammed into his armored frame as some scaled up variations of the widespread pirate weapon known as the Battlehammer continued their constant barrage from deep behind the front lines. The earth shuddered a bit as their nuclear reactors hurled massive projectiles sheathed in green energy miles away with a quite startling rate of fire, a rate of fire that allowed the space pirates to break it even with the tri-barrelled railgun equipped Juggernaut walkers in terms of devastation.

One space pirate of the Urtraghian breed, the "purestrain" space pirates as they liked to call themselves, was barking some orders to pirates of the Zebesian breed, a caste that had been greatly shamed due to the whole Zero Mission debacle. To lose a planet wasn't that much of a deal for an empire as large as the Space Pirate Confederacy, to lose one of their most heavily developed, expensive, and most strategically located worlds to a single human was dishonorable in the extreme. Thus the largely Urtraghian high command shoved the majority of the blame on the unfortunate Zebesians. Such were the ways of Space Pirate politics. But Sylux didn't really care, as long as the Space Pirates continued to pay him handsomely to do their dirty work, to function as their anti-hunter; he couldn't care less about which breed held the favor of the purestrains.

About the only figure of high command whose position was at all stable was the enigmatic but tremendously powerful Space Pirate Generalissimo Val'aza'krax, the overall leader of the entire confederacy and in theory their unquestioned dictator. In practice High Command functioned more as an Oligarchy, though few of it's members were ever dumb enough to go against Val'aza'krax's decisions without reaching a consensus with a good number of their peers beforehand. Sylux's star had risen quickly enough in the past few months to have actually met the Generalissimo in person once. He was quite impressed. The Urtraghian was most definitely larger than was normal for a purestrain at a staggering sixteen feet, dressed in indigo and black armor plating that was built to simultaneously aggrandize, protect, and enhance it's wearer. Though Sylux did have to admit...the indigo cloak was a tad too much...and the number of spikes was borderline silly.

Nevertheless, Val'aza'krax leased Sylux on a long term contract, seeing potential in the young Cylosian man to counter the reputation of the Federation's hunter. So far, the two had met on the field of battle as enemies once, on the world of Gravalax. He was sent to help break a Federation Line, she was sent to fortify it. The clash ended in an inconclusive tie. Sylux believed that he should have had an upper hand, with his somewhat better suit, whose base template provided a better damage reduction than her basic power suit, giving him 75% damage reduction after factoring in the varia and gravity suits vs Samus' 50, his greater arsenal in the form of his subweapons, his nova, wide, and diffusion beam, his inferno and electromissiles, his superior speed in alt mode provided by the Lockjaw's hovering ability and his boost jaw, and the addition of his x-ray and thermal visors. In truth, Samus had also acquired upgrades since zero mission, managing to even out the disparity in upgrades in their entirety, with her affinity missiles blancing out his affinity shock coil. As for the disparity in the two's alt mode maneuverability, Samus was a good deal more skilled with her morph ball than Sylux was with his Lockjaw.

That frustrated Sylux, that competetive drive he and Samus had when they were kids...when she knew him as Samuel von Sanders...a boy who had more in common with her than one would think possible, and a friend with whom she was closer to than any other...that drive was still very much present, but it grew into a desire to prove that he was superior. He had a two year head start on her in the bounty hunting business with his first alter ego SVS; he started at age thirteen while Samus stayed with the Federation Police and Army until she was fifteen. And yet she so quickly managed to catch up to him, which at first he just shrugged off as her having superior equipment. Back then, he didn't mind...they were about as close to one another as two socially dysfunctional teenagers could get without intimacy, and they worked with each other on countless missions; the competition was friendly. But now as his older jaded self, he felt little save for resentment. The fact that their friendship ended in such served to exacerbate these feelings.

But he pushed those thoughts from his mind, he had a job to do. He stepped towards a command bunker after stepping to a massive blast door at the base of a mountain, where the guards; these Urtraghians in Commando armor; let him through without incident. He stepped through a large series of such blast doors which all successively opened for him after their commando guards verified his identity. He finally came across a ramp and descended down it's twisting passage ways for a good five hundred feet before entering the elevator room where he into a hologram in the center of an circular lift which soon hummed as energy fields around it came to life. Sylux couldn't resist the temptation to look down as repulsorlifts and rockets flared to life and brought the whole lift downwards at break neck speeds; dozens of inertial dampeners kicking in, though one would have more than sufficed, thus speaking volumes of the paranoia of the Space Pirates. Indeed each of the thirty six active inertial dampeners had thirty six backups; meaning that short of outright disintegration of the lift there was no way for it's dampener system to fail, and it's locomotion mechanisms possessed a similar level of exponential redundancy. The lift shot it's cargo down a good ten miles beneath the surface of the ground, with the final mile being comprised of reinforced duracrete. In all, some twenty miles of rocky material stood between the actual command room and the surface world, this mammoth layer of material being supplemented by countless layers of shielding and an truly formadible array of firepower in the form of countless guns from the smallest turret mounted assault rifle to the largest anti-orbital cannon.

Sylux stepped off the lift and into the reception room, where he proceeded past at least half a dozen more ten meter thick blast doors made out of the toughest materials that the space pirates could find as well as a dazzling array of shielding. It went without saying that this planet was long occupied by the Confederacy, and this facility in particular had a lot of time to be built up. Indeed, sprawling fortress cities covered 10% of the world, and truly hellish conditions that mimicked those of the pirate Homeworld Urtraghus prevailed due to the huge levels of pollution. At the very least though, the rain wasn't quite strong enough to require Hazard Suits by non-urtraghians, and the Varia Suit's anti-corrosion material and shielding were impervious to it, indeed even his zero suit shielding could withstand the rain, though it would take damage at one unit per second.

Finally, Sylux stepped into the lobby and went through yet another series of ludicrous security checkpoints and passed through dozens of well defended and guarded rooms before he could finally enter the war room, where thousands of pirate commanders were overseeing hundreds of holographic displays of the battlefield situation at every imaginable scale. The room was massive, so despite the huge number of high ranking officers and their aides; there was more than enough space for everyone to move through with little risk of bumping into one another. One of the pirate commanders, with violet markings to indicate his rank as the rough equivalent of a human field marshal turned around and greeted Sylux, beckoning him to follow the commander to his area.

The Space Pirate snarled out in it's growling, roaring language that echoed upon itself somewhat. Urtraghians could not replicate the majority of human languages and Humans could not speak Urtraghian at all, thus Sylux's suit translators kicked in to make sense of the snarling he was receiving. "Good, you have arrived Sylux. The situation as you can probably tell is bad. We are having trouble holding these aliens off without being forced to cower in our redoubts. Trying to actually gain ground is currently a laughable prospect." His suit helpfully translated into subtitles that flashed over Sylux's visor. "One enemy formation is approaching this redoubt from these directions and all attempts at holding them off or counterattacking have proven fruitless." His suit translated as the Space Pirate swung it's clawed but rather slender hands over the holographic display map to indicate enemy formations as blue icons, showing that they were forming a pincer to envelop the mountain redoubt. "We need you and a group of other hunters to form a strike force to break their lines and create gaps for us to exploit. If we can shatter their lines and launch a counterattack to cordon them off into scattered pockets, we will be able to crush them at our leisure and bring morale up and provide reinforcement to other positions." The Commander pirate continued, Sylux's suit continuing to translate it's tiger like roaring as it made another series of hand gestures, causing the display to show some icons stylized to show the symbols of the hunters deployed at this redoubt and other such elite units like commando groups moving outwards and puncturing the enemy formations, at which point the space pirate forces shown as green icons swarmed out like a horde of angry bees and filled the punctures before encircling the now broken up enemy formations and squeezing them out of existence like an unsightly pimple caught between the nails of two strong fingers.

"So where do you need me to be deployed?" Sylux asked, folding his armor clad arms as he looked at the holographic display. "You are needed here." The Commander snarled out as his suit translated while the pirate tapped the ground that represented an area about two miles due west of his present location, above ground of course. Sylux studied his position and smiled beneath his helmet as he recognized one of the hunter symbols...his favorite psychopathic supersoldier...Kanden.

* * *

><p>Zix'Kal'Xar stood in a underground facility, cloaking device activated and hiding himself from the primitives that ran the base. Krikens...he believed they were called. Zix'Kal'Xar was a nobleman of the moon caste, part of an organization known as the Iva'Zid'Yar or the "Black Hand Squadron" which consisted of himself, Xik'vil'rax of the Death Caste, Xil'Zak'Kar of the Sun Caste, and Sok'Scr'Arl of the Storm Caste. All of them were noble warriors, Kil'Vah'Iid or "Dread Imperial Fingers" as their ranks were known. They were the great heroes of their species, embodiements of their caste, legendary warriors who saw combat with the legendary warriors of other species as the greatest gift life had to offer. Zik'Kal'Xar was rather humanoid, standing on two legs, though they were somewhat digitrade, reminiscent of a werewolf, it had a rather lithe body, though it still evoked great power, four arms emerged from it's upper body, all ending in claws even more wicked than was usual for a Xik'kri'vik. It's waist had a earthen kilt, somewhat like those of the romans, though it was made as an ornamental add on to the power suit it wore; a suit that still very much evoked the aesthetics of the ancient mesoamerican cultures.<p>

From the top of it's shoulders came two inward curving horns whose tips stood a good deal above it's head. Between it was a gnawing void that hungrily drank all incoming light, a contained singularity. It's head like all Xik'kri'vik, bore one prominent eye that was fasceted like a fine gem, though it's eye was indigo in color, as were the trimmings of it's suit and the underarmor worn where flexibility trumped the need for protection, such as it's abdomen, the back of it's leg joint, it's arm pits, and the pits of it's arm joints. Surrounding it's primary eye were seven smaller ones that looked like smaller gems whose only purpose was to aggrandize the crown jewel. Sideways facing bladelike Antennae sprouted from where it's temples would be, stretching out for a good distance from it's head. As a member of the moon caste; it's sideways facing mandibles were elongated significantly, vaguely resembling the snout of a wolf. Though it was bisected vertically rather than horizontally.

It's role in the Black Hand Squadron was that of an infiltrator, saboteur, assassin, commando, and spymaster, jobs that were well suited to the moon caste's biology and rearing. Most any job that required subtlety fell onto him. Currently, he was working on sabotaging the sensor grid of the Kriken world of Jarax Beta. His systems foiled the primitive detectors of the Krikens, allowing him to penetrate deeply into their redoubt. When his huge frame could advance no farther, he released from subspace storage one of his pets, an elite moon jackal; a creature who greatly resembled the eight limbed feline mechanoids the Sun Caste used; called "Sun Jaguars" by the primitives, but where their forms somewhat echoed that of Terran Big Cats, Moon Jackals had forms that somewhat echoed that of Terran Canines. Whereas most mechanoids were purely mechanical, this Moon Jackal was actually a power armor clad animal from the Xik'kri'vik homeworld, a long time pet of Zix'Kal'Xar, it was thus given superior equipment, and much in the way of intelligence enhancement, bringing it to a level of thought where it could rightfully look down upon the intellects of the primitives. It was named Vra'Zix'Ork or "Fierce Moon Ravager." Vra'Xik'Ork arched it's back downward as it's lupine eight limbed form, clad stony power armor slipped into the Kriken base, activating it's cloaking fields as it did so.

It loped into the control room with little trouble, easily eluding the simple minded primitives before it came across the terminal that commanded the Kriken sensor grid for this fortress world that lay upon vast deposits of precious materials that could be a great boon to the Lord High Dominator's sacred war. It waited until a change in shifts occured, giving it the opening to crack into the terminal. It quickly set about it's work, the spiked tip of it's long whip like tail inserting itself into an opening, where wires snaked out and connected to the system, where they quickly fed in their insidious commands. It bypassed the layers of redundancy meant to prevent such a hacking attempt with ease, quickly giving the sensor grid a blind spot that would render it unable to detect the oncoming Xik'kri'vik fleet without totally shutting it down and thus alerting the Krikens to the fact that something was amiss. Just to be sure, it's malware was encoded with special programs meant to confound attempts at removing it, it would not be foolproof, but it would waste enough of the Krikens' time to ensure that they would not be ready to deal with the Xik'kri'vik fleet when it arrived.

It's mission now accomplished, the alien beast slinked it's way back to it's master, following Krikens as they opened the doors that it needed to get through before reuniting with Zix'Kal'Xar, leaping onto it's master's upper right arm and leaping into the contained singularity, bringing it back to the pocket dimension where it was stored when not needed. With this task completed, Zix'Kal'Xar activated another function of his singularity and teleported away to where he was needed next.

* * *

><p>Author's note: Hello again, and welcome to the thirdfourth chapter of Metroid: Doomsday. So here's my personal view of what the metroid universe is like. I personally believe that it's a universal scale...universe (good examples of this scale are the Xeelee sequence, typical cosmic storylines for the Marvel 616 universe, Doctor Who [sometimes anyway] certain Transformer universes like the aligned continuity, and so on so forth) and not a galactic scale like far too many other sci-fi settings to count (Warhammer 40,000, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Culture, certain Transformers continuities like the Bay films [which I loved, go ahead; flame me], Animated, the IDW G1 comics, then there's firefly and the list goes on and on and on.) I point to the example of Samus' ship casually reaching the Tetra galaxy despite it being millions of light years away, this journey could have at most taken one year (there is a two year gap between Prime 1 and 2 in which Hunters fits in, the other year of course; would have to be for the return trip) and clearly it did not take anywhere near that long.

If a small ship, no matter how fancy and customized, can so easily cross such a large distance; then clearly intergalactic distances are somewhat trivial to cross. Of course, there are limits; such as Phaaze, which is most likely billions if not trillions of light years away from any point in known space. Now of course; even if it is possible to quickly cross huge distances that does not mean the whole universe is explored. Being able to go fast only means you can get to the exploration site quickly, it doesn't do much for the actual exploration, and if you want a complete map of a planet you can expect to sink in years worth of time even if you have a large team. Thus, there are probably large swathes of unexplored territory even within "known space", not even mentioning what lies outside of "known space."

I also vehemently disagree with the idea that the space pirates are just some group of criminals. I see them as being a nation-state and a superpower with criminal leanings, one capable of going toe to toe with the Federation and with it's own fully fledged government. Their (slight) differences from human nation states are easily explained by the fact that they are not humans and thus have a different social system. The Space Pirates show a culture that crosses certain aspects of ancient Carthage and Sparta with some tinges of Nazi Germany, one that glorifies war and profit above all else and demands the undying loyalty to the nation state and shows a voracious military-industrial complex that churns out the material for war in great quantities. Their draconian lists of rules and punishments (going from pay docking to stringing you up and serving you for dinner) show a high value of discipline and corporate efficiency. And of course; in the Manga the Federation declares war on the Space pirates, you only ever declare war on Nations, never Crime Syndicates (to declare war on a crime syndicate is pointless as they are already enemies of the state by default and doing so only gives them unwarranted legitimacy.)

I also loathe the idea that the pirates are too stupid to think without the help of other species. High command is run by the space pirates and no one but the space pirates and the space pirate logs in the prime series shows that even grunts are capable of full thought. Ridley and Kraid are just enforcers of high command, they are not full time members. They (as well as Phantoon and Draygon) are what TV tropes would call "the dragon." They have plenty of their own command and power, but ultimately they call someone else boss. I speculate that High Command Enforcers are huge and powerful yet intelligent and cunning creatures drawn into the service of high command to act as a combination of a Commissar and a General. They are creatures recruited for their physical and mental power to bolster the Space Pirate's military and act as living symbols of High Command's authority.

As for Mother Brain, I believe she had a rather unique relationship with high command. While they probably didn't allow her to become part of it, they allowed her a great degree of control and independence. If High Command was the Wehrmarcht's head honchos, then Mother Brain would be the commander of the Waffen SS. Following the probable rounding up and war crime trials of High Command's members and a general offensive to sweep up the disoriented holdings of the Space Pirates all across the cosmos after the Federation occupied the Space Pirate Confederacy's capital of Urtraghus (know as the Pirate Homeworld in the English edition of Corruption) Mother brain probably rallied the broken remnants of the Space Pirates and consolidated them in and around Zebes. Of course this proved disastrous as we all know due to Samus Aran induced planetary destruction, which probably allowed the Federation to swoop in and once again sweep up the disoriented space Pirates until there was probably nothing left.

In my headcanon; the Space Pirate Confederacy more or less ceased to exist as a coherent entity not long after Super Metroid, though it was already badly broken by it's string of catastrophes in the prime series. One thing to note though; Samus probably didn't make too much of a dent in the Space Pirate's manpower on her own, but in Tallon IV she more or less deep sixed their probably hideously expensive wonder weapon program with phazon, on aether she Deep sixed their still developing and problem ladden operation on Aether, forcing them to reconsider the whole phazon operation. Then came Dark Samus who probably rebuilt their forces and managed to bring them on a general offensive that caught the Federation with it's pants down, letting them enjoy unprecedented success for a month. But in all likelihood they probably overextended themselves and when Samus crushed their phazon operations on Elysia and Bryyo; paving the way for the Capture of Urtraghus itself, they were probably horribly demoralized, and totally disoriented (all signs point to the Space Pirates being quite centralized, meaning that the loss of their capital would be crippling). But the Federation focused on dealing with Phazon as everyone who has played Corruption knows, they wrecked their fleet above Phaaze which probably was a large setback for their navy, and Samus completely destroyed their Phazon operations forever, destroying what they relied upon to rebuild for nearly six years.

Following this, the Pirates would have been easy pickings and would have probably lost a ton of their territory. They made a bit of a comeback after switching back to Metroids and rallying around Mother Brain, but they were probably past their glory days and once Samus blew up their new seat of power, their remainders would have been easily crushed by other powers and at that point they would have ceased to exist as a coherent organization. Sure there would be some remnants, but they'd be like the little scattered pieces of the Eastern Roman Empire in it's final epoch, just a few sad fragments of a power that the whole political world once feared, now simply waiting to die while they squabble over what little they have left.

Now onto other subjects. I'm sure some of you would like to know what were my key influences. I won't lie, peptuck's Tiberium Wars fanfic (a very good work that I highly recommend to all the C&C fans reading this) was definitely one of the biggest influences. Gaunt's Ghosts (great series of books, even for non-warhammer 40k fans, indeed it's a great place to start if you are looking to delve into the lore of that particular setting) was also an big influence. I'm not even ashamed to admit that the Transformers movies also influenced me (particularly Dark of the Moon, which is...I am not ashamed to admit; my favorite movie ever.) As we know relatively little about the standing militaries of the factions in Metroid, I had to make a lot of it up; and thus I looked heavily into C&C and Warhammer 40k for inspiration, though I draw a bit from all the great sci-fi sagas I know of. I'm sure that many of you will notice my rather obvious expies of C&C and Warhammer vehicles in the Bragg section of this chapter.

In any case; Farewell until next chapter!


	5. Massacre

Samus had by now moved into the position dictated for her by Ghor's plan. She was deployed on the right flank of the hunter group, but for now she would weight. The purple, red, and yellow of her gravity suit gleamed in the sun, her shields keeping away dirt and grime. Of course, this very self same suit made her stick out like a sore thumb. But then, camouflage was never her strong suit.

Executor was in his position, wielding a massive rail sniper; a gun as long as he was tall that propelled massive bullets more typically found being shot out of artillery guns; the Eradicator XL-9 railgun. It was not the kind of gun you typically wasted on individual infantry man, it was a gun that you used to kill said infantry man and everyone in the same block with him and then kill everyone in the next block and leave the guys in the block after that choking on their own blood, severed limbs, spinal fluid, chunks of flesh, and ruptured organs.

He even had "Make compensation jokes at your own expense" scrawled on the right side of the gun's barrel. He sighted one of the Aliens...an high ranking infantry man, who stood at an impressive fourteen feet, not including the large and rather ostentatious headdress..."What kind of idiot makes their officers so easy to pick off..." Executor muttered as he lined up the shot, aiming slightly upward to compensate for gravity's pull, his processors crunching all the necessary data before he lined up the perfect shot and fired.

At first, blue energy crackled through the gun as it accelerated the osmium projectile to speeds well in excess of escape velocity, a low hum sounded through the air before the projectile was spat out of the gun. Then there was an ear splittingly loud thunder clap that issued forth from the Sound Barrier's protests against the speed of the projectile as it ignited the air it traveled through; leaving a flaming comet tail behind it as it speed towards it's target.

The alien officer had about a half second for a most comical expression to work it's way on it's utterly inhuman face before it and it's entire body vaporized while the projectile's sonic boom flattened dozens of other soldiers before it slammed into the ground and kicked out a crater. The aliens clearly thought that they were suffering some kind of artillery barrage and quickly began to move into bunkers and other well fortified positions to wait out the nonexistent barrage. To further keep up this illusion, Executor fired five more times, finally emptying his magazine as he tore into the ranks of the aliens, blasting them into stony chips and strange ichorous pulp.

"Now quickly...while they're confused and disoriented...attack!" Ghor ordered as he drove down, firing off his vast array of weaponry, red shields flaring into existence while a barrage of power beam shots, missiles, and a huge red river of molten energy in the form of his thermo-plasma beam. Terridax followed, power beam shots, artillery pulses, and plasma pulses all streaming out of his many guns. The mechanical titan even grabbed one of the aliens in his mighty right claw and snatched it's lower body with his left and quickly pulled the beast in half before tossing the corpse at it's fellows, knocking them over like bowling pins before he continued his assault.

Spire bowled through many of the aliens, his dialanche mode quickly splitting off it's rocky exterior and spinning them around himself to form a barrier of blades that cut through the alien shields and armor with startling speed. Samus herself quickly entered speed boost mode and charged straight through a substantial formation of the aliens who were still too busy with trying to redeploy to make any sort of concerted effort to repel this sudden offensive. Even the immensely tough shields of the aliens were simply no match for the force of the impact created by the Speed Booster and it's disentegrative energy fields.

Finally Samus ran up on an alien hover tank, using it like a ramp and quickly spinning into the air; the screw attack's power field overlaying itself with that of the speed booster's; creating an unstoppable whirling buzzsaw of death that rammed itself into the shield of the city before it. For a terrible moment the two energy fields clashed, and a bright sort of light filled the air, but the Xik'kri'vik shield was the first to give way under the onslaught of the Chozo technology, allowing Samus to create a gap that was widened by Ikran's reaper autorailgun, pumping forth a terrible volley of hypersonic shots.

Finally, as the rest of the hunters began to rout the enemy forces; who in their panic began to abandon their posts and flee to safer territory; the shield collapsed utterly as all ten of them began to relentlessly pound away at it's strength. But a terrible rumbling in the ground began to sound, as if a vast colossus were shuddering beneath the ground. But that was impossible, this part of the planet was not near any fault zones or subduction zones. The last earthquake in this region was dated to over five million years ago...so what could be the cause?

Still, she had a job to do...and that job required delving deep into a den full of an strange and truly Alien enemy. She steeled herself as she waited for the rest of the group.

* * *

><p>The order to attack had been sounded by the Federation military brass; prompting the huge rolling juggernaut that was the combined Vhozon and Federation Army groups to begin to thunder forward. Bragg himself was attached to the central part of a division posted to the front lines. After moments of tense waiting; the order to attack was finally given after a period of intense bombardment by both aircraft and artillery.<p>

The enemy lines had been strangely quiet...but Bragg was not one to count his blessings. His tank roared forward, heavy tracks digging into the dirt as it's engine grumbled along the path. His 155mm cannon swung left to right slightly, waiting for any sign of a target that may have evaded his radar to show itself.

This was of course...unnecessary, nothing could evade his vehicle's various scanners. That was something drummed into his head at the academy. But he liked to feel sure. Sometimes, there was nothing one could trust more than their own eyes.

Soon, his vehicle, spearheading an assault, was rolling closer to the edge of the bombardment line, smoking craters stretched across the landscape as far as the eye could see. Surely nothing could have survived such a bombardment? This was a thought that bragg soon pushed out of his head. Years of experience had shown him that an artillery bombardment, no matter how precisely aimed and powerful, rarely kills more than a third of an enemy force. It was meant to soften up the enemy, not outright destroy them on their own.

Bragg maintained high confidence and hopes, his tank offered some of the best protection any vehicle in the whole universe could offer. But something in his holographic viewer caught his eye, and he quickly turned to face it. It looked like a rather dark and tall object, a bunker of some sorts...it was hard to tell as the coastal fog rolled into the area. "+Echo team I'm moving in to confirm a visual of a possible enemy static defense.+" Bragg reported, receiving a "+Roger that sir.+" from his armored company. So bragg brought his tank a little closer, just penetrating the thick mist to get a good view before turning his head.

For a moment, his mind was completely incapable of accepting what it saw before it. It was too horrible for his sensibilities to simply accept, but eventually, reality forced him to acknowledge this sight. What he saw caused the cigar he was chomping to fall straight out of his mouth in sheer shock. A pyramid, some hundred feet tall...made entirely out of corpses. He saw some of the aliens, dressed in their oddly mesoamerican styled power armor with their gangly vaguely arthropodic bodies, organizing a firing line. There must have been at least a thousand civilians, most of them those too old, sick, or young to pick up weapons and fight.

Fires raged throughout the area as artillery weaponry dueled at long ranges, flak clouds, energy beams, and missile streaks filling the air while deafening concussions sounded again and again. From a distance, tracer and beam fire could be seen...but Bragg could see none of that...his eyes were focused solely on firing squad. He saw one child, holding a teddy bear before one of the aliens reached down with it's lower left arm and forcefully yanked the toy out of his hands and smacking the child in the face with the butt of it's staff blaster and rebuking him in it's strange tongue. Then, the soldiers assumed their firing positions and lowered their weaponry.

Disbelief prevented Bragg from intervening before the soldiers holding the weapons shot every single civilians. A stream of blue bolts issued forth from their staff blasters and sent limbs, body parts, and ashes flying in all directions. It was all over in five terrifying seconds. Some children who were short enough to avoid the initial shots were dragged forward by the soldiers where they were literally pulled apart, limb from limb. Some of the more savage of the aliens even bit pieces off of their victims before spitting it out, finding it inedible due to biochemical differences.

For a moment, the sounds of intense artillery bombardment were drowned out by the infinitely more terrible sounds of high pitched voices screaming in pain as they were viscerally pulled apart. But soon, Bragg snapped out of his catatonic state, and his disbelief was replaced by sheer rage. He didn't care if this was an isolated incident or merely part of some sanctioned mass slaughter. "+All units, fall on me...We got some bastards to kill.+" Bragg snarled over his comms as he ordered his driver to hit the gears into motion, causing the tank to roar forward.

"FIRE!" Bragg ordered, splitting the sky with the muzzle blast of his tank's massive main gun, a deafening boom roaring through the air while automated machine guns on the tank's top, hull and coaxial to the main gun began firing, spitting forth a huge array of bullets that was soon joined in by the rest of the tank company as they charged into the field, similarly determined to avenge this atrocity. The executioner platoon was caught off guard and had little time to assume defensive positions, firing off their staff blasters wildly while IFVs thundered in, unleashing their ordinance to cover their infantry squads as they unloaded out of back mounted ramps.

The enemy spat forth a fusilade of blue energy bolts that blew many a fine marine into a bloody pulp, but the weight of numbers began to tell. Slowly, the aliens were beginning to drop as concentrated fire began to overwhelm their shields and armor. Silicate limbs flew off of their bodies, heads exploded, staves were dropped and bodies hit the ground. After an brief but intense five minute fire fight, the ordeal was over, and the disbelieving federation soldiers lowered their weapons and had a look around to see.

Bragg himself dismounted from his vehicle, followed by the rest of his crew, a morbid curiosity to see the crime with his own eyes overwhelming his desire for self perseverence. He walked around and absorbed the full scale of the atrocity...he looked at one corpse, a child...torn apart...by pulling. The arms and legs were tugged off...and a strange bite mark was present on his head, marking where one of the aliens had taken a large chunk out of his skull. "It doesn't make any sense...why would they take time out to do this..." One private remarked, finally finding words to put in his mouth. "They're xeno bastards...nothing they do makes sense." Another private bitterly replied, disgust filling his throat.

The sound of battle was raging all around the company, but right now, Bragg was too absorbed into looking at the grisly monument to the sheer malice that sapient beings could have for one another embodied in the pyramid of cadavers. Artillery shells, battle cries, and gunfire roared all around, but still Bragg took the time to fully absorb the sight before him. Bragg muttered a prayer to his God, he prayed for vengeance against this foe...even as the thundercrack of displaced air caused by teleporters sounded, he was still in prayer.

Even as an earth shaking rumble, far different from that of the artillery and bombs, rattled him, Bragg was still in prayer. It was only when an all new sort of screaming started, that Bragg was forced out of his bubble. He looked back and saw huge tendrils made out of hundreds of rotatting earthen circles of the same aesthetic as the aliens bursting through the earth, lava oozing down the sides of the creatures. Bragg and the other men in his company rushed to their vehicles and postions, but more tendrils rose.

Some of the tendrils had their front ends facing Bragg, and then he saw them for what they were...huge gaping maws filled with never ending rows of buzzsaw like teeth that rotated in a maddening pattern while lava dripped from it's maws. Entire battalions of federation soldiers were falling into lava filled pits, where they would rapidly fry to death as the drilling beast tore open the ground and let loose the molten lithosphere to the surface after thoroughly melting the stony bedrock below. At the center of this cacaphony of mayhem rose one tendril, far larger than all the others, it's maw fifty meters wide at the least, allowing it to swallow an entire company in one gulp as it drew itself from the earth.

Then it lowered itself onto the ground, and a blue capsule on it's back was revealed, a capsule that opened revealing an absolutely monstrous Xik'kri'vik. The creature had four arms as was standard for the Xik'kri'vik, all of a massive build and all hands ending in wicked claws, and stood on two clawed elephantine legs. Like all Xik'kri'vik it had one massive central gem like compound eye, coloured blue like a rich saphirre while a ring of seven other smaller eyes surrounded it. Two antennae jutted out at a thirty degree angle from the rough equivalent of it's temples from it's somewhat flattened head while two inward curving blade like fins jutted from it's shoulders, where a miniature sun burned above it's head. It's face had two multifaceted mandibles, sideways facing where a row of buzzsaw like teeth sat on their edges.

"Oh man we are so fucked..." Bragg muttered wordlessly as the Alien began to step down from his tamed beast, which was now obviously at least a kilometer kilometers long. "Nok'tur'nom; Xic'It said in a growling, trilling voice as deep as any Bragg had ever heard, it's voice was as if it was trying not to choke on a murderous contempt for what it saw as primitive savages. "We are fucked, fucked, fucked, fucked!" One private next to him, a woman in her late teens, managed to spit out before the massive alien turned to face her and pointed it's upper right arm at her, raising the plating of this arm and exposing the blue circuitbord like interior of the arm which soon built up a sunlike yellow glow before unleashing a three foot wide river of energy that promptly incinerated the woman next to bragg after crossing a distance of at least half a kilometer, at which point the alien sweeped the beam across Bragg's company, incinerating them and their equipment as if it were cheap cardboard.

At this point, Bragg had enough, all his discipline failed him, all his training proved useless, his morale was utterly shattered, the rage that had once fueled him was completely gone at the sight of this alien and it's monstrous pet. He broke down and ran, he ran like a coward as braver men stood and fought, not knowing that the enemy had surrounded them after allowing the Federation to push their convex formation inwards and in effect, envelop themselves, with the gaps being sealed by teleporting enemies. Bragg ran, he didn't look back, looking back would only let those things catch him. He ran, crying and whimpering like an idiot child as he slipped through a little hole in the cauldron the Xik'kri'vik were making. Bragg ran far, far away until his power armor augmented legs could carry him no more.

He collapsed on the ground, and curled up, in utter shock. Shuddering, whimpering, utterly useless as a soldier.

* * *

><p>Xil'Zak'Kar, Xik'kri'vik nobleman of the sun caste, had been sent to lead a counteroffensive that would utterly shatter the main thrust of the Federation's counterattack, he had emerged from the very bowels of the earth, riding his pet, known as "Dra'Tin'Wyr" or "Great Magma Wyrm." He had already disposed of a federation armored company, reducing their tanks to slag and their bodies to ash with great yellow rivers of energy.<p>

Like Zix'Kal'xar and Xik'vil'rax, he was part of the "Kil'Val'Lid" The Dread Imperial Fingers. Ruthless, ingenious, filled with a contempt for all inferiors. Soon, the huge and powerful Xik'kri'vik dismounted his pet, each step of his elephantine legs was audible. He saw one whimpering savage, begging for mercy in it's filthy barbarian tongue. As some Xik'kri'vik sentinels approached, Xik'Zak'Kar pointed at the nearest squad of nine and then motioned to the simpering idiot. "Kol'ron'nok" He growled, meaning "Make him Slave" in his strange chiming tongue, and the Sentinels obliged, grabbing the poor fool by the arms to the Xik'kri'vik camp, kicking and screaming.

The behemothic Xil'Zak'Kar then turned to general direction of the main body of the federation forces, which was trapped in an ever tightening noose. From his studies of human literature as part of the Xik'kri'vik analysis of their foes, he remembered a book about a certain human General...Hannibal Barca of the long gone city of Carthage. The Ghosts of Cannae he believed was the title... There the numerically inferior carthaginians made an inverse crescent, which meant that as the Romans pushed inwards, they only served to envelop themselves, a maneuver sealed by the cavalry, and once there was no escape, the Romans were slaughtered in their entirety.

Xil'Zak'Kar had decided to imitate this maneuver, using teleporting brigades to emulate the cavalry. Rings of anti-aircraft units meant that there would be no escape for the federation, and now the butchery would begin in it's earnest. The federation, all too eager for a victory, rushed headlong into what should have been a fairly obvious trap. Xil'Zak'Kar was loathe to admit it, but his plan worked off so well due to his enemy's blithing stupidity and overeagerness as much as his military brilliance. At the moment there were wide open spaces between the federation forces, but they would be, they must be clumped more and more together for the slaughter. A slaughter that Xil'Zak'Kar was keen on joining in on. He turned his baleful azure gaze towards the main host of the federation forces and growled.

His mandibles oscilated, clicking together as a low growl escaped his maw. A growl of pure contempt. Soon, Xil'Zak'Kar once more summoned his pet, which he climbed up to reach his capsule. With a command, his pet descended into the earth, boring through the cooling pit of lava that had formed and into the earth, rapidly heating up the bedrock below and melting it, creating a underwater river of magma that the beast could swim through. From within his capsule, Xil'Zak'Kar had an access to an array of sensors, which became increasingly filled with contacts. The foolish, doomed creatures had no idea that they had all been lured into a tarp. He commanded the Magma wyrm to rise from the earth, and soon it's vast central bulk and many tendrils began to tunnel their way out of the earth, forming deep channels of Lava.

From his command capsule, he could see that the Federation soldiers were in shock, stunned that such a huge beast could have been beneath their very feet. The sound of screams could be heard from within the capsule as hapless federation soldiers fell down it's gullet, having been snatched up as it rose from the earth. They quickly found themselves in it's magma gullet or were ground against it's constantly rotating array of teeth as it Rose up. Rounds harmlessly glanced off of the creature's vast and seemingly impenetrable hide, it's tendrils soon lashing out to devour those who had dared to strike out against it. Satisfied with his pet's performance, Xil'Zak'Kar emerged from his capsule, and glared out from the back of the "Dra'Tin'Wyr". Guns built into the Wyrm's hide began to emerge and let loose a great stream of firepower while Xil'Zak'Kar let loose great streams of energy from his four arms.

The contained sun above his head unleashed further destruction, scything down all it could catch with it's beams. Tanks erupted into flames, men burned into ash, aircraft were knocked out of the sky, and whole companies were lost within the gullet of the Wyrm. But as terrifying as the wrath of the sun was, the oncoming Xik'kri'vik army was worse. The Wyrm served to block off a large avenue of escape while Xik'kri'vik soldiers teleported in to fill the gaps and others moved in through more conventional means. Soon, there was no escape, there was no hope...and now they were going to kill them all. "Nak'Glu'Blu; Vor'Hok'Kot" The Titanic Xik'kri'vik sunlord commanded over his commlinks, translating into the famous most feared of all Xik'kri'vik orders, that roughly translated into "No Prisoners, only trophies." Not long after issuing this order, a most terrible massacre began.

A frightened mass of life found it impossible to go any direction or focus it's efforts anywhere. They feebly tried to fight back, but no matter where they tried to go, the superiority of the Xik'kri'vik military was found waiting, and the corpses began to pile up. Limbs, ashes, and blood pooled everywhere, burnt out wrecks and shattered bits of vehicles lay strewn about in all directions. It had transformed from a battle into a massacre. A coward chase, where there was nowhere to run. To Xil'Zak'Kar it was a glorious moment, a great victory of the likes that he had gone without for far too long.

He stepped forth from his pet, his arms releasing devastating rivers of burning energy, while the miniature sun kept contained by the two hornlike limbs jutting from the topsides of his shoulders released fusion blasts that incinerated all caught by it's all seeing gaze. Each thunderous step with his elephantine legs gave the ground a small shock, while the massively built Xik'kri'vik pressed his own personal attack with all the lack of subtlety the sun itself possessed.

Though he was capable of acts of battlefield brilliance, in personal battle; he was an oncoming tidal wave of destruction. Unmissable, unmistakable, unstoppable. He didn't need to be subtle when he commanded so much personal power, tank rounds glancing off his shielding while his own retaliatory shots erased whole companies from the face of the universe. In the shadow of his enormous pet, the mighty Sunlord continued to advance, having his soldiers tighten the noose that they had caught the galactic federation in.

As he advanced, a group of federation soldiers leaped out of their vehicles and threw their weapons on the ground while raising their hands in the air, gibbering in their feeble tongue with words of surrender and pleas for mercy. Stopping his advance and sweeping the area with his fierce sapphire like blue central compound eye, Xil'kri'vik's mandibles chattered in seeming consideration of their proposition. But the sun lord had no use for surrender or prisoners, he had given the order after all.

Extending his arm blades, the soldiers screamed, screamed louder than they had ever screamed. Then they bled, until the ground ran red with their viscera. And then they all died in a few horrible moments of bloody slaughter.

* * *

><p>Author's notes: Holy fuck that took longer than it should have. God damn my procrastination. Sorry for taking so long people, I just sometimes get hit with serious lazy spells and writer's block. I just hope I didn't take too long. I'll try not to procrastinate for such extended periods of time again, but I can't make any garauntees, especially since my vacation is about to end.<p>

So I'll try to get as much done before I actually have to work again. Then we'll see what I can do. Now as for insights, well, yes Xil'kri'vik is an homage to Shockwave, because I love the character to bits in a totally heterosexual nonrobophile way. And yes; I was reading too much about the battle of cannae. Now if any of my more military oriented readers have any ways to improve my in story tactics to be more realistic; I'd be glad to listen as long as you are polite in doing so.

I consider myself a rather casual military enthusiast, I'm definitely no scholar or armchair general.

Now as for how much it would take to bring down an average Xik'kri'vik soldier in a Metroid Game, I'd say somewhere between an Advanced Pirate Trooper and a Pirate commando in toughness. They'd hit rather harder though, staff blasters are pretty nasty weapons.

And yes, for now I'll alternate between Samus and Sylux for each chapter, and the next chapter shall reveal the last of the four fingers of death.

And finally; I'm wondering if I should bring Ridley and/or Kraid into this but so far I'm a bit uneasy with the proposition as canonically this is supposed to take place a mere year or so after Zero Mission with Prime being two more years down the road so I'd have to have Ridley get incapacitated again by the end of his appearance. Tell me what you think of bringing them in to help alleviate my uneasiness.


	6. Storm bringer

Sylux's ship buzzed over the battlefield, slipping by dogfights between pirate fighters and those of the Aliens, even as a storm brewed he kept on going with his ship, though he punched in a few commands into the control panel to have the ship analyze the storm system, which did not quite match normal weather patterns for the area. Still, with a job to do, Sylux continued on; his ship firing only discouraging warning shots at approaching enemies to ward them away and guard his own vessel from attack.

He briefly wondered what his enemies would be like. He had only seen their ships so far after all, but when he had landed in the maelstrom of battle near an artillery battery where the deep booms of artillery battlehammers could be heard shaking the earth, making the youth wonder just what it would be like to be on the other side of the barrage. Probably nothing pleasant in the slightest to say the least. Fighters whizzed about as they dueled each other for control of the skies while commanders input coordinates for their artillery cannons to lob their shells with their nuclear engines.

"Sylux...long time no see..." Said a deep booming voice that sounded like an earthquake. The loss of some energy from his shielding and the feeling that he was just hit by a railgun spike confirmed that the source of the voice was Kanden, who had just gave him a particularly hard pat on the back that probably would have had similar effects on an normal human as a large caliber bullet. The Enoema super soldier was definitely taller than Sylux, who at six foot six out of his suit and roughly six foot ten inside his suit; looked short in comparison to the nine foot giant.

"Kanden...still got quite the hand on you..." Sylux managed with a cough, that pat on the back more or less knocked the wind out of him. "Heh...I forget my own strength sometimes..." The Giant said with a small laugh. "Well, if the two of you are quite finished..." Said a mechanical voice, prompting Sylux to turn around and see the cyborg form of weavel. "We have a job to do..." The Cyborg droned, causing Kanden to guffaw. "Hah! Live a little, we have time!" He chuckled out, and Sylux could tell that if weavel still, or indeed ever had eyelids or eyebrows, he'd be giving out a death glare.

"Bah, we are here to kill stone bugs, not dilly dally like old women." Said a deep voice with a heavy russian accent filtered through a voxcaster, prompting Sylux to turn around to see what had to be the clunkiest suit he had ever seen in his life. To say that it resembled a hard diving suit would be to give hard diving suits a grave insult in obesity. The Red Star confirmed that it was a product of the Cosmic Union of Soviet Socialist republics, a nation formed by Russian colonists following the aftermath of the hierarchy invasion of the earth and the reverse engineering of hyperdrive technology much as how the Cylosian Reich was formed out of German colonists.

A drab olive-green in colour, the suit's "visor" looked more like a ventiation shaft's grille with some one way red material behind it. The suit had no neck, giving it a ogrish appearance further enhanced by the absolutely enormous arms and legs and the powerfully built torso. Behind it were a series of almost comically large rockets and tanks that were filled with deadly desolator "defoliant", which was the weed killer equivalent of a supernova cannon amongst little blastcaps used on more expensive toy guns. The "defoliant" was incredibly corossive and toxic, organic matter exposed to it withered away in the blink of an eye, and a secondary mode would spray a special chemical that would render inorganic matter vulnerable to the defoliant as well, meaning that virtually no unshielded ground target was safe.

The nozzles were connected to what looked like the heads of gasoline pumps, a really archaic throwback. The fists were massive and given a large number of pistons and power field generators; signifying their nature as powerfists, tools of the trade for C.U.S.S.R battlefield infiltration tactics; which gave a big middle finger to the stealth used by most powers in favor of using men in massive powered armor suits or automated versions of such suits jumping in on rockets and punching their way through walls like the kool-aid man. Tesla arcs on the fists further added to his weaponry, giving him an electrical component to his arsenal.

Then came the dual HMGs mounted on his suit, capable of releasing a deadly spray of energy coated bullets that would reduce any thin skinned target to a bloody pulp and/or a smoking wreck in a few moments, further complemented by two grenade/missile launchers and two miniguns. To add to this long line of destructive weaponry were dual laser cannons on the underarms as well as an EMP emitter on the suit's back, a large supply of tesla bombs, a tesla shockwave emitter, and an silly amount of plastic explosives.

With this silly amount of weaponry and utter lack of anything even remotely resembling subtlety, stealthiness, or basic aesthetic elegance (though it did have a sort of tesla punk appeal to it), Sylux concluded that this had to be Ivan Romanov, a C.U.S.S.R drone turned freelance special operative clad in an almost comically overly well armed suit. Of course, few laughed for long when they saw Ivan in action. That never stopped Sylux from calling him "fat" though.

Others in the group included Severa, a cyborg woman in a midnight black suit of rather form fitting power armor who could be nicely called a "psychopath", equipped with two deadly high powered energy scythes, a series of grenades, a pair of galvinic accelerator cannons, and just about the worst attitude Sylux had ever encountered in anyone; ever. There was also the fact that she was a total whore, but to him that was the least of her problems.

One space pirate equipped with a new sort of Pirate Commando armor was standing forth, Krazavlad; this space pirate took the time to modify his equipment to include missile launchers, a improved rocket pack, better armor plating material that made him immune to most man portable projectile weaponry while being highly resistant to beams, an improved energy shield and sword along with an more advanced version of the PAC, a second shoulder mounted grenade launcher, and shielding for himself. His yellow line of a visor obscured any features, just as how the pirate wanted it.

Then there was Vod and Ane, both were identically equipped; a rocket pack, a high powered energy rifle, a rocket pack mounted missile launcher, a series of grenades, dual high powered energy pistols, two wrist mounted dart launcher, micrograpple hook launchers, a large quantity of grenades, wrist mounted flamethrowers, vibroknuckle blades, a ceremonial energy slashing dirk, and a suit of armor whose most distinctive features were the black T shaped visor. They were in a relationship, Vod having met the girl Ane in some clan custom Sylux couldn't be bothered to give two credits about, but other than that Sylux knew little and cared less.

Rounding off this motley bunch were Hyqua and Imix. Hyqua as it's name implied was an alien being comprised purely of liquids, in this case the ubiquotous H2O. It resembled a wave given a very vaguely humanoid form with no legs and a hunched over head that was elongated slightly. It was given a harness that allowed it to more readily interact with solids while still giving it the benefits of being liquid. Any liquid near this creature was liable to be controlled by it, and it was very fond of simply engulfing and drowning it's foes.

Imix was a being comprised of fire; or more accurately Plasma. It was a being of raw, unfettered heat, a burning elemental hunter who loved to just watch things immolate. Looking very vaguely like some kind of upright snake with burning red-white arms, Imix also had a harness that allowed it to interact with solids. Like Hyqua, it technically had weapons but much rather preferred to use it's natural abilities and watch the world burn.

"So...this is all we got huh?" Sylux questioned as he looked around at the group. "We're being sent to wreak havoc in the enemies rear, not get ourselves killed at the front." Krazavlad said as he checked his armcannon, punching in some commands into it's console. "Right...gotcha..." Sylux responded causing Ivan to turn to him. "You are awfully disrespectful for someone so successful." The communist robot said with a shrug. "Maybe it's because I'm so successful that I get to be disrespectful." Sylux said back calmly.

"What about that incident on Simchar five where Samus handed your ass to you on a silver platter?" Severa quipped, smirking under her helmet. "No...that was close affair." Ivan's metallic voice responded as he turned to the woman. "Get...back...on focus...now..." Krazavlad snarled, causing everyone to shut up. "Alright...we need to break through the enemy lines and get at their rear, but to do this we have to avoid getting bogged down in extraneous conflicts." The pirate freelancer said, causing most present to nod.

"Aww...but pointless violence is the most fun kind." Severa said half-jokingly, causing Krazavlad to snap a finger at her. "This is no time for your pointless humor woman, get focused now or you will be dead before you ever reach the aliens." Krazavlad threatened as he kneeled down to start drawing up a battle plan in the mud with a stick. "We'll need a line breaker to create a gap we can exploit to get around to the back. Simply attacking head on screaming at the top of our lungs is a great way for us all to get killed." Krazavlad said as he drew up the enemy lines.

"But we have a perfect line breaker right here...this artillery battery can be used to open up a gap that we should be able to exploit, after which we'll make for the enemies rear and make a deep thrust to clear them u-" Krazavlad went before he heard Severa giggling, causing the pirate commando to snarl and smack her in the face in one quick motion, sending her falling in the mud back first. "Keep your libido out of serious military matters!" The pirate commander roared in anger before returning to his plans.

"If I may make suggestion. My rocket packs will allow me to get deep in enemy territory. Those who can fly can join me while groundpounders follow in." Ivan suggested, folding his arms, causing Krazavald to nod. "Alright sounds reasonable. That means Sylux, Vod, Ane, and possibly Kanden and Weavel and me. However I'm going to have to request that Weavel stay here with me to support the other five." Krazavlad responded, scratching the chin of his helmet.

"They will burn...rest assured." Imix laughed as he created a spark of fire from his hand. "Take it easy you pyromaniac." Weavel warned him, causing Imix to chortle some more. "I will test my mettle against this new foe...it will be interesting..." Hyqua stated, seeming almost eager to just start off into battle right away.

"Try to keep up." Sylux said to Vod and Ane, causing Vod to shake his head. "Just because you have a fancier suit doesn't mean you're better than I am." The man, who sounded rather young, still in his youth no doubt; responded. "Hah, alright, I'll put that on your tombstone." Kanden chortled. "Heheh...hell yeah...action." Severa said with a girlish glee. "Alright since you're so eager to go kill something you're in front." Weavel responded, causing the woman to shut up immediately.

Soon Sylux was space jumping over the battlefield, with kanden following, while Ivan, Vod, and Ane flew through their air on rockets. On the ground a vast battle was raging. Space pirates at the throats of these strange and fantastical alien invaders who seemed to have leaped right out of a mayan story. What was once an organized battle had soon devolved into savagery on a mass scale. No longer did unit organization exist, there was simply individual duels repeated en masse.

Pirate weapons and the strange arsenals of the aliens went out in all directions, letting loose apocalyptic levels of destruction that Sylux was glad to not be a part of as men and machinery danced with the duke of death within the space of a few kilometers. So ferocious was the combat that it had broke down into hand to hand fighting in many places, with the dead piling all over the area, many more space pirate than those of the strange aliens.

But soon their destination was in sight as they soared over the enemy lines, calling in an artillery barrage at a designated set of coordinates that soon blew apart a fair sized hole in the enemy lines as massive green explosions overtook them. One alien looked above to see the fifteen foot form of Ivan descending towards him "I am plumber! And you are mushroom man! I crush you!" The Soviet Drone shouted as he came down at an incredible velocity, crushing the alien sentinel under his boots and smashing it into gravel.

Immediately firing every weapon he had, Ivan gave Sylux the space he needed to shinespark into the nearest group of enemies, blowing them apart as he reared up and looked around, seeing a confused group of the strange eight eyed stone aliens advancing in disciplined formations, arranged in squads of nine with their green cloaks billowing out behind them while their emerald like eyes gleamed in the gloom. It was a very ostentatious display in Sylux's opinion.

But their order soon turned to savagery after a few volleys from their staff blasters that sent forth a fusilade of green bolts that sylux managed to jump over and retaliate with a burst from his shock coil, bringing one of the Sentinels down after what seemed to be an inordinately long time. Charging into melee, they activated the energy fields at the heads of their staves, turning them into deadly power weapons. Ducking under the high swing of the first Alien, Sylux fired off a charged missile to force the creature back while jumping over the low swing of the next one.

As soon as he was able, Sylux went into lockjaw mode and droped two trip wire power bombs and allowed one of the strange sentinels to activate the weapon; but as soon as that had happened, he dropped a third, then a fourth in rapid succession. For a moment there was silence, then there was a terrible cacophony of noise as a massive shockwave went out in all directions, the sphere of heat and pressure soon giving way to an angry mushroom cloud.

Kanden grabbed one Sentinel by the head and pulled him over, throwing him so that his back was perpendicular to his knee, after which Kanden delivered such a terrible blow to his back that the alien was split in two; with Kanden tossing the pieces at one of the sun jaguars deployed in the field. The felid construct growled menacingly and lunged at Kanden, but the hunter simply jabbed his arm cannon into and fired off a charged combo-beam shot into it's midsection and split it in half.

Ivan came upon a bunker's door and stood there for a few moments. "Knock, Knock." He said with a chuckle as he swung a right fist forward, sending the door flying forwards and bowling over some sentinels. "I'm the Desolator, bitch." Ivan said as he charged into the area, smashing through the comparatively small sentinels and knocking them over like bowling pins before breaking through a wall and entering a command room. "I'm going to light you up." Ivan went on before Kanden cut into the comms "If you start with the puns, I will _hurt_ you." The Enoema growled. "What? Is just fun!" Ivan said as he punched an unarmed technician through a wall. "Ten points!" The soviet drone shouted happily.

Vod and Ane on the other hand were fighting back to back, Vod using his rifle, Ane using dual energy pistols. They were doing quite a good job of keeping the enemy pinned, but compared to many in the group; they were rather lightly armed. But as a large and burly Defender advanced towards them, stave heads glowing a fierce green; Ane fired off her pistols to little affect against it's shields, the defender suddenly stopped and looked down as an energy blade was showing through it's chest, while two were going through it's gut.

The fourteen foot tall alien slumped to the ground and impacted the mud with something of a squelchy thud. There was weavel's half-turret mode, and Severa. Reforming into biped mode, weavel stood up and looked at the two. "You looked like you needed a ha-" He said before he cut himself off as he felt someone playing with his ponytail, causing him to turn around to see Severa messing with it. "Would you stop that?" Weavel droned. "But it's so much fun!" The woman protested with a giggle. In response, weavel did the closest approximation to a brow pinch that he was able to do.

"Knock it off, we still have work to do." Krazavlad said as he finished spearing a sentinel through with his arm cannon and threw off the body. "Who died and made you king?" Severa asked, prompting the space pirate to drop kick her in the chest and send her onto the ground. "I will not tolerate your constant disrespect and lack of regard for authority!" Krazavlad growled at her as she picked herself off of the ground.

"Maybe you should stop acting like you ow-" Severa was about to say before a cascade of thunderbolts flashed in the sky dangerously close to them. "Wait...since when was there a thunderstorm?" Kanden said as he turned around to see an Alien to rule them all at the eye of the storm. Two bird wings made of stone stretched from it's back, it's mandibles elongated like a beak, it's eyes glowing like emeralds. It's four arms spread out to enhance it's god-like image while it's legs were concealed by a long sort of tunic/skirt.

* * *

><p>Sho'kra'eam floated above the battlefield like some sort of angry god, and soon all eyes were on the fourth member of the Kil'Val'Lid. A follower of the Storm God, Sho'Kra'Eam possessed great and terrible power. As space pirate fighters brought themselves to face the creature, it whipped up the winds to supersonic speeds and brought dozens of lightning bolts down upon them, blasting them out of the sky as it leisurely floated to space pirate lines. Those soldiers on the ground who watched their air forces get blasted out of the sky soon raised their weapons and began to fire at the lord of storms.<p>

But the Xik'kri'vik threw forth a massive electrical burst from it's upper right hand, followed by another electrical burst from it's upper right, covering large swathes of ground in a massive explosion of lightning that fried them where they stood. Other soldiers were met with thunder, it's lower arms throwing forth two massive sonic bursts that were slightly louder than an atomic bomb going off at point blank. The space pirates caught by it were sent flying like match sticks in the pressure wave, their bodies split open as if they had been punched by the fists of angry gods.

Sho'kra'eam floated forward, shooting forth four massive green lightning bolts that fried countless space pirates where they stood before opening up it's mandibles in a horrifying display to fire forth a green beam from it's maw, sweeping it across the battlefield to incinerate more of it's foes before floating up in the air and increasing the speeds of the wind to above the speed of sound, creating a constant; deafening sonic boom while picking up and hurling men and materiel like toys.

Lifting the enemies higher and higher until they were at the very edge of the troposphere, the Storm lord then let the picked up enemies drop to the ground, letting the multi-kilometer fall kill them all, their bodies turning into smears in the mud while it brought down a massive cascade of lightning down upon more of the space pirates, frying them where they stood with unnaturally powerful green bolts of lightning from the heavens above.

These primitives would know who the true masters of reality were. They would know why the Xik'kri'vik were destined to rule all of existence, as the holy word of the living god and lord high dominator Zyc'kra'val dictated. These aliens should have bowed down and groveled before the Xik'Kri'Vik advanced force, but as they had refused to accept their true masters, they would now know the wrath of the gods.

Using it's technology that gave it frightful command over the very fabric of space itself, Sho'kra'eam called forth a host of Xik'kri'vik to take the battle to the space pirates, letting it's terrible windstorms relent at last. Commanding it's forces to advance, Sho'kra'eam finally flew forward, it's terrible weaponry primed and readied for battle, it had no fear of these primitives. Indeed who would fear such inferiors?

Why would any true Xik'kri'vik be afraid of these creatures that look upon Chozo technology with awe? When it was the Xik'kri'vik who pushed the Chozo to the brink of catastrophe in a devastating lightning war across the cosmos? Why would they fear such inferiors when the master plan was so close to completion. There was no need to fear defeat. Victory was assured. The Dominion would soon encompass all reality and the Xik'kri'vik would rejoice!

* * *

><p>Author's note: So there's the new chapter! I hope you enjoy the characters I've created to help fill out the roster for this fanfiction, because I certainly enjoyed making them. As you can tell, I am going to pick those whom I'm going to focus on and develop further and those whom I'm going to just leave as named extras.<p>

I have all these new ideas for the story and hopefully I'll be able to update on a weekly basis without burning out again. I just hope that I don't have to confront my number one enemy; laziness. Because I have a terrible track record in my fight against my own unwillingness to work.

But ever since I've started going back to work, I've had a lot of time to just think on ideas, so despite the fact that I don't have as much freetime as I used to, perhaps it will help my story writing more than my vacation ever did?

In any case, for those of you who enjoy the Samus and Sylux pairing, well they're going to meet up fairly soon after dealing with their first encounters with a member of the dreaded Kil'Val'Lid.

Also, Zyc'kra'val will soon be formally unveiled. So be on the look out for the Lord High Dominator.

Now, as for the Iva'Zid'Yar's powers. Zik'Kal'Xar controls matter, represents water, serves the moon god, and commands the weak atomic fore. Sho'kra'eam commands space, controls electromagnetism, serves the storm god, and represents air. Xil'zak'kar commands energy, controls the strong atomic force, serves the sun god, and represents fire. Xik'vil'rax commands time, controls gravity, serves the death god, and represents earth. So you can imagine how devastating they are when they're fielded together on one battlefield.


	7. Pyrocumulus

Xik'Vil'Rax looked impassively upon it's display screen, observing the process that countless Xik'kri'vik fleets made as they pushed through all corners of "Primitive" space with contemptuous ease. Yes, here and there, some pockets of resistance were to be had, but ultimately, they were little more than pebbles before the steamroller advance of the Xik'kri'vik. Still, there were some troubling reports of the primitives managing to achieve some small, tactical successes here and there. Xik'Vil'Rax was unsure of what to make of this, but his underlings reported that the primitives by and large most emphatically did not hold the Xik'kri'vik's ritualistic attitudes towards warfare.

How distasteful, it thought as it's eight fingered hands rapped their fingertips across the console it was getting a holographic display in. It's teal coloured compound eyes analysed every detail of what was presented to them, while it's multi-part mandibles rippled like a wave as they chittered, though this was hidden by it's light absorbing hood. It had also received reports that many of the primitives didn't conform to the standard polytheistic theological worldviews the Xik'kri'vik once thought to be universal. A worrying number of them were monotheists!

Such heresy made Xik'Vil'Rax laugh. A single god with no serious rivals ruling over everything that is usually said to be all loving? Pah, this violent, strife filled universe could only be explained by by competing factions of multiple gods. His own kind had a pantheon consisting of of billions of recognized deities, which clearly had to be stronger than the deities of anyone else, as no one else had or even could stand against the Xik'kri'vik in a straight fight. Yes, these monotheists would have to be re-educated once they were assimilated into the Dominion, lest they feed the power of accursed deities such as Mul'Car'Nas, lord of winter, and Mot'lug'ehb, the dread deity of sterility by subscribing to clear nonsense.

In Xik'Vil'Rax's mind, the only logical explanation was that these "monotheistic" gods deceived their followers into denying the existence of other deities to make up for their lack of numbers. Yes, that was the only way things made sense. But even worse amongst these primitives were those who thought that it was impossible to prove or disprove the existence of deities, were wholly apathetic on the subject of religion, or outright claimed that there were no such things as gods! Atheism! Such a concept was inconceivable. And yet, many captured soldiers laughed at their wardens when the anointed "Jin'iur'may" or "Representatives of gods" attempted to make them swear fealty to the gods of the Xik'kri'vik and acknowledge that their own deities would be bound and vassalized to the great gods of the Xik'kri'vik just as their nations would swear fealty to the Lord High Dominator.

One of them, a scientist, even had the gal to claim that "For such an advanced species, your beliefs and political system are ridiculously outdated. You've got a feudal society who believes in magical invisible men in the sky who guide their every action that somehow managed to develop technology that can play silly putty with reality. I know a lot of people say that religion and science can mix, but you really have to bend your whole damned system backwards to make it work with your science." The scientist scoffed in the video report, which brought him in to be tried, sentenced, and executed by a court of heresy. If there were more like that…cur…who so brazenly mocked the Xik'kri'vik's beliefs, then clearly these primitives would need re-education of truly fierce calibre.

This "Democracy" and "Republic" that had been reported among many of the primitives "empires" had also been quite troubling. How could any system function without a divinely appointed monarch? The whole system was just utter madness and folly. Certainly it should not have been able to survive for as long, or work as well as it did. This was certainly a most troubling region of space. Especially given the defiant resistance of the primitives, who, outmatched in individual power, technology, and caught by complete surprise, still kept on fighting back, trying to use their sheer numbers to overwhelm the onslaught of the Xik'kri'vik.

"Lord Death Commander, Progress is slow, Slower than expected, Lord High Dominator, Wants faster results" One of the other commanders in the Xik'kri'vik invasion force stated as a holoconference began, bringing up the images of a large number of Xik'kri'vik commanders of all stripes, prompting Xik'vil'rax to turn over to the holoemitter. "Lord High Dominator, Must be patient, Primitives are stubborn, Will need time, to completely subdue." Xik'Vil'Rax responded in it's almost digital voice, these utterances of course, being translated from the Xik'Kri'Vik language. "Addittionally reports exist, of surviving legacies, of free league, Chozo and Alimbic." Another commander, this one the rough equivalent of a rear admiral given it's ornate, wavy armoursuit, dotted with star like gems here and there.

"Legacy of enemies? Who are they?" The Death caste commander inquired, it's mandibles chittering as it thought over this news. "Half breed warrior, a human female, named Samus Aran and alimbic nanite, in human male, name is unknown, calls self Sylux, according to records." It reported, prompting a series of nods from the other commanders, a symbol of worry within Xik'Kri'Vik culture. "We need Visual, two are dangerous, must be eliminated, for the Dominion." A scarred sun caste general growled before the last holoimage flared into being, prompting all of the Xik'kri'vik to bow their heads before the image. Why wouldn't they? It was the Lord High Dominator Zyc'Kra'Val himself.

The Lord High Dominator, part of the Dominator caste, had powerful but digitrade legs, curving antennae, two powerful arms ending in eight fingered hands, a pair of vast mineral armour covered wings, square edged but rounded topped pauldrons that ended with great inward curving horn-like fins that stopped facing one another some distance from it's head. The head itself was garbed in the "crown" which wrapped around it's helmet, resembling a combination of a furnace grille and a gothic knight's helmet while a V-shaped crest emerged from the brow above it's single primary and ring of seven secondary eyes. The multifaceted compound eyes glowed a fierce yellow, the regal colour of the Xik'Kri'Vik, and it's billowing golden cloak wrapped around it's limbs.

"Lord High Dominator, Zyc'Kra'Val, our living god, what is wish? Oh mighty one, all must bow, to your glory." The meeting of commanders stated, in awe of their mighty and ancient living god. "Your progress slow, wish to inquire, why is so." It rumbled in an thunderous, ululating, and reverberating digital tone that seemed to shake Xik'Vil'Rax's ship. "Oh gloried one, the primitives stubborn, blasphemous heretics too, too many monotheists, great number Atheists." Xik'Vil'Rax finally stated after an momentary pause. The mere mention of the Xik'Kri'Vik words "Joy" and "Noy" which meant "mono" and "A"theist respectively, caused the equivalent of a collective gasp. The mere possibility of such religious systems, or a lack of one, was considered utterly blasphemous.

"Many are also, not having Monarchs, strange government forms, such as snoutcounting, they call Democracy, and Constitutional Monarchy, where primitive Dominators, are lesser bound." Another commander, not to be upstaged by the Death Caste member, part of the Kil'Val'Lid" he may be, added prompting many angry chitterings of mandibles, the rippling series of little jaws clicking and clacking while aghast growls were had by all, even the Lord High Dominator himself. "This is blasphemy, this is madness, you must destroy, it is obligation, bring primitives order, end their chaos. Save them from, Mul'Car'Nas, Mot'lug'ehb, and their allies. Heresy is intolerable, destroy it all, leave no trace, of hideous blasphemy." Zyc'Kra'Val boomed, the yellow glow to his eyes increasingly intensifying as he spoke, pouring through the furnace like slits of his regal helmet while the strange energy sphere above his head flickered angrily.

"One more thing, Lord High Dominator." Xik'Vil'Rax said, slightly raising it's darkness covered head. "Yes you speak?" It responded, it's mastery of the odd Xik'Kri'Vik language flawless in it's nature. "Legacy of enemies, Chozo and Alimbic, and other rivals, Chozo and Alimbic, successors they are, heavily augmented primitives, Chozo Samus Aran, Alimbic one Sylux." Xik'Vil'Rax informed him, prompting the Lord High Dominator to become very quiet indeed. "They are trouble, must be destroyed, legacy must die." Zyc'Kra'Val commanded, prompting the entire conference to give him an immediate salute, the command to roar praise to the Lord High Dominator being sent out to the vanguard of the invasion force all across the universe.

* * *

><p>Samus thought that she was prepared for anything, no matter how strange or dire. She managed to confront her homeworld's despoiler and the murderer of her parents, the space dragon Ridley, after all, and laid waste to one of the largest, most developed, and important Space Pirate fortress worlds in the universe, her adopted Homeworld of Zebes, all on her own before. When she was still new to the bounty hunting business, she managed to help Samuel manage to avoid getting killed by Frank. She had faced down a massive robot rebellion, a pirate mutated and driven mad by exposure to extradimensional energy, fought all over the universe, and had become recognized as the best in the business.<p>

But what followed, was something even she had trouble accepting. The tremors that she had detected in the ground earlier kept on worsening, her thermal visor informing her that a massive heat build up was just beneath the ground, while her sense of touch informed her of a colossal series of tremors that prompted the entire posse of bounty hunters to pull back. "What the fu-" Rundas started before a massive earthen tendril, dripping with lava and emitting colossal amounts of haet, speared it's way out of the ground, the sand all around it melting into molten silicate while it's hundreds of ring like segments began to rotate.

Then came another tendril, which let out an ululating roar as it tried to reach out and devour the nearest hunter, Gandrayda, who just barely managed to backflip out of the way as dozens upon dozens of more tendrils kept on bursting their way out of the ground, each surrounded by lava and molten silicate, the sand near them fusing into glass from their sheer heat. As the hunters dodged the waving tendrils, blue gem like eyes on them began to fire piercing rays of burning light, sending out stabbing lances of blue-white solar energy while other mouths belched forth inconceivably hot fire.

As Samus side dashed out of the way of an incoming tendril with supersonic speed and agility, she saw that the tendrils ended with enormous circular maws that lead down a vast tract of endless circular rows of rotating buzzsaw like teeth, molten lava burning inside of it's gullet all the way through. She fired off a rapid barrage from her combi-beam, which impacted upon a blue-bee-hive patterned geometric energy field and deflected harmlessly. Then came the largest of all rumblings, prompting the emergence of the single largest tendril. No…it wasn't a tendril, it could only have been the main body of the creature.

The enormous beast tore itself out of the earth, letting out a thunderous roar as it seemed to stretch out to the heavens before bringing itself spinning downwards to slam back into the ground like a beaching whale, kicking out a massive amount of molten debris. The Debris weren't hot or fast enough to harm her shields, to which terawatt level shots, enough to power entire 21st century nations, were considered fairly weak impacts, but they were big enough globs of molten silica to make moving out of their way a very good idea. With an inhalation, her superhuman reflexes took over. With something that some might call prescience, she gracefully kicked herself into the air and began a series of flips and space jumps that allowed her to dodge countless tons of molten minerals.

The vast lava wyrm coiled around as it unveiled a blue pod, which immediately unfurled and opened up like the petals of a flower, letting the form of Xil'Zak'Kar rise from it, straightening itself from a prone position, a miniature sun blazing above it's head while it's glowing blue crystal like eyes scanned the foes before it as it stepped off of it's colossal mount. "I am getting massive threat level readings from these guys!" Ghor stated as he brought out his weaponry while the Lava Wyrm coiled it's several kilometres long body around the battle field, it's immense body heat forming channels of molten silica and bedrock as it dug through the Earth.

Spire looked on dumbfoundedly at the massive silicon based life form before him, muttering out something in the rumbling Diamont language before Xil'Zak'Kar raised and pointed one of it's arms towards Spire, reconfiguring the armour plating of the arm into an ornate cannon that ended in a barrel surrounded by pincers stylized to look like the jaws of a monster. A fierce glow built up, along with the hum of machinery powering up before Noxus slammed into Spire to knock him out of the way as a colossal spear of burning energy stabbed out from the cannon.

Irkan was the first to fire upon it, letting loose with his auto-railcannon, pumping forth hypersonic shells at the behemoth, who barely seemed to flinch from the shots. Stomping forward like an implacable man as it's shields flared into being again and again, deflecting off the projectiles at sharp angles as it advanced at a leisurely pace. Rundas fired forth a frost blast at Xil'Zak'Kar, sending a massive wave of cold towards the giant, freezing the air around it while it's shields once again flared into being. But the thing simply kept on walking and shattered the meters thick ice layer like nothing.

It then rose one of it's elephantine legs for a particularly hard stomp on the ground, prompting everyone who could to try and leap over the expanding blue ring of energy while an amused growl ushered forth from the Xik'Kri'Vik's throat. Samus scanned the creature as it casually swatted ZR-88 away as the massive drone attempted to tackle the advancing Nobleman while simultaneously sending Terridax ass over teakettle with a blast from the miniature sun stationed over it's head, the ray of plasma blasting into the other colossal drone and then picking him up and throwing him like a ragdoll.

"Analyzing: Decrypting Alien research database code….Decryption complete…Scanning….Scan complete: Xil'Zak'Kar: Subject is a Xik'Kri'Vik noble man of the Sun caste, and given the warlike nature of Xik'Kri'Vik society, such a position of authority also entails with it a great deal of physical power. Subject is noted for possessing tactical and engineering brilliance, but is most famous for it's seeming invulnerability to harm against most weaponry due to the strength of it's shielding, armour plating, hide, and a set of inertial field manipulators within it that allow it to literally become immovable or unstoppable. Galvinic and Quantum energy may provide best results for damaging shields. Currently, subject's threat level is above user's ability to successfully deal with, recommend retreat or subversion." The suit offered before Xil'Zak'Kar turned to face her as Ghor and Spire uselessly tried to stop it's advance forward by pulling back on it's legs.

"Nothing stops the Juggernaut." It played on an audioclip. It did have a point, it had transcended mere implacability and had become an outright Juggernaut. She decided to test if it's inertial field manipulators were really all they were cracked up to be and backpedaled a bit before rushing forward in a sprint, building up speed and momentum until her speed booster kicked in, sheathing her in a field of destructive energy before jumping up just a little and then redirecting all of her momentum for a side tackle into the chest of the Xik'Kri'Vik Juggernaut.

She prepared to smash through the thing's shield and chest, not quite buying her suit's pessimistic opinion of her chances of success. That is, until she slammed into the thing's shields once again, the section of bee-hive barriers she impacted flaring into visibility and clashing with her speed booster energy before literally rebounding her momentum right back at her, adding it to the charging behemoth's own force and sending Samus slinging through the air like a meteor and slamming into a Xik'kri'vik building or five, punching through several walls and rooms and disintegrating many a hapless Xik'kri'vik. Her speed booster energy kept her from getting any shielding damage, but she was still groggy and unfocused.

Gritting through the dizziness as she tried to stand up before stumbling onto a knee, Samus leapt into the air to space jump back into the fray where Gandrayda took the form of a massive, charging horned beast to ram into the charging form of Xil'Zak'kar. This time, she avoided bouncing off, but after their collision, Xil'Zak'Kar immediately pushed her back, and back, and back, it inertial field manipulators granting him far superior momentum before it threw her off completely. "We need another plan." Noxus stated as he uselessly fired his combi-judicator into the thing as it shut off it's inertial manipulators to allow itself to stop and turn.

Samus leapt down and shook her head as she hit the ground. "We play to the mission. Get our ships and level the city while it's shields are still down. Just try and keep here occupied." Samus wryly remarked as she fired off a quintent of charged super missiles. The seekers arced around and then slammed into Xil'Zak'kar before it could recalibrate it's field manipulators, this time actually causing the thing to backpedal away before firing off a searing lance of raw energy from it's open mandibles, sweeping them around and forcing Samus to duck and roll under them while calling in her gun ship.

Executor, some distance away, levelled his rail-sniper and took aim at the thing's head as Ghor, Zr-88, and Irkan fired off every weapon they had into it, Noxus and Rundas focusing upon firing at it's feet with their frost based abilities, and Spire, Terridax, and Gandrayda in the form of a massive reptilian ape like brutish predator, a mountain of muscle, rushed into melee. Xil'Zak'Kar stumbled around a bit as it was rocked by a series of blows and impacts. A colossal fist from Terridax making it stumble backwards while Spire leaped up and slammed his larger orb hand into the side of it's head, prompting it to list to the left even as it's shields deflected the Impact. Gandrayda brought her shapeshifted form's arms around it to try and hold it down, the shields showing up in all points of contact.

Samus then went in for another shinespark ram, dashing past the rivers of firepower shot out by the team's ranged specialists, getting to see Gandrayda back off and roll away as Executor fired off a full clip of enormous railgun shells into it's head, bringing it down to the ground, unharmed but battered around while it tried to pick itself up, Rundas and Noxus succeeding in freezing over it's trunk like legs just as Samus launched herself in for a shinespark. Slamming into it's chest and sending it flying backwards before she redirected herself upwards and kept on going until she could go up no more, aiming down at the thing and firing off a massive barrage of enhanced missiles, subweapon, and combi-beam shots into it before entering morph ball mode and charging up a colossal boost ball impact even as fire, ice, and lightning rained down on it.

But with almost preternatural reflexes, Xil'Zak'Kar reached out and grabbed Samus' morph ball mode with a hand before slamming her into the ground and then firing off beams from it's eyes, mouth, contained sun, and other arms to drive away the others. It looked down at Samus as she unmorphed, it's oscilating mandibles rippling as they chittered with a perverse delight. "Nowhere to run, you halfbreed orphan." It growled out in English, translated from it's natural speech with special vocoders, it's burning voice deep and rumbling, yet almost digital and musical at the same time. It was privy to this information upon receiving the data memo from Xik'Vil'Rax, and found that the Chozo had chose a primitive to make as the embodiment of their dead warrior culture endlessly amusing.

But it only heard laughter from Samus. "Why do you laugh halfbred primitive?" It thundered angrily, bringing it's head closer to her, blazing eyes looking into her visor obscured face. "Because you've lost." She said in the cheekiest tone she could manage, eliciting nothing but confusion from the Xik'kri'vik Nobleman. "You are beneath my hand! Where is my disadvantage?" It growled, it's translators compensating for it's unusual grammar and syntax patterns. "Look up in the sky dumbass." She told him, prompting the giant to look into the air and see a wing of gunships and corvettes. "No, not possible…" It growled out before the wing of craft flew overhead and dropped forth a series of high powered explosives designed for levelling deeply entrenched and immensely strong fortifications and damaging capital ships.

With a series of blindingly bright flashes, the installation went up in flames while an artillery barrage called forth by Executor slammed all around the ring the Lava Wyrm made, the beast's mind starting to register a threat. "You vile wretch!" Xil'Zak'Kar roared out before it heard the sound of chozo morph ball technology engaging, then the sound of a power bomb going off. Still not having activated it's inertial manipulators, the Sun warrior was send hurtling backwards by the massive wave of heat and pressure, stumbling around as it caught it's balance before calling forth it's pet, growling out a series of curses in it's native language before returning to the Lava Wyrm. Once again, the huge beast rose somewhat as Xil'Zak'Kar returned to his capsule, and then it sank back beneath the earth.

"Well…mission accomplished…" Rundas panted out, looking at the series of craters and ruins that now occupied the space that held the Xik'Kri'Vik prefab city. "Let's see if that's got Marshall Emir happy, shall we?" Samus asked as she unmorphed and shook her head, commanding her ship to come and land near her as she calmly strode forward, cracking her neck a bit.

* * *

><p>Author's note: WOW Did that take way longer than it should have. But yeah, here's the long delayed seventh chapter to what I hope will be to the metroid fanbase as Peptuck's Tiberium Wars is to the C&amp;C fanbase.<p>

As you can tell, my usual array of references are peppered everywhere, and we have the first battle between a Xik'Kri'Vik Nobleman and the hunters whom this story will focus on.

Now while the story is focused on Samus and Samuel, I have on the order of twenty other hunters to introduce later on, an awful lot of soldiers, some civilians to show the homefront side of things, a few more politicians, and a whole variety of other named characters.

Can I do it? Well probably, as this is a war story, you can expect me to be quite kill happy with OCs. That being said, I won't let the Canon characters get through things without their own deal of pain either.

I've also partially based the mindset of the Xik'Kri'Vik on the Race from Harry Turtledove's worldwar series. They've lived with their own system and those with similar systems, for so long that the modern splurge of variety is quite simply as difficult for them to grasp as it is for the "Primitives" to grasp their culture.

A major theme of the Xik'Kri'Vik is that while their technology is nothing short of astounding, culturally speaking they're ass backwards, still possessing a highly theocratic society that runs a line between Feudalism and Depotism with a set of traditions older than the human species. This, along with the fact that the "primitives" have power in numbers, is their primary weakness in warfare. Once you've adjusted to their methodical way of war, you can predict their actions quite easily, though they still have overwhelming force and are still ferocious fighters.

Up next, Sylux's side of the story, a show of how the Krikens are doing, and the first discussions of an alliance between the Pirate, Kriken, and Federation-Vhozon camps. And possibly more Sylux!Samuel/Samus ship teasing.

I'm also taking up another project that goes back to Samuel's Pre-Sylux days to show he and young Samus' adventures while they were both still kids. Expect to see it soon!


	8. Heated discussions

"Well…fuck…" Weavel cursed as he looked up at the awe inspiring form of Sho'kra'eam as it flew towards them. "Get moving! Clip that damned birds wings!" Krazavlad hoarsely shouted as he moved to take cover as the stormbringer threw forth a series of green lightning bolts that shot out and slammed into the ground, arcs of energy sparking out in all directions. Ivan barely managed to dodge the incoming explosions of electrical energy by activating his jump jets, hurtling away from them while Severa was slammed by the back blast of one and locked up as electricity frizzled her visor.

Sylux ran out of the way, his speed booster kicking in and surrounding him in a lethal buzzsaw of energy as he utterly violated the sound barrier, hitting hypersonic speeds to get out of the aim of the Xik'kri'vik beast. But as he moved, a realization struck him…he had seen a figure a lot like that in an old Hieroglyph he saw as a kid. He used to assume it was a badly drawn Chozo from the time they still had wings, or some sort of Chozo god, but now he could see. "No way…" He muttered as Sho'kra'eam let loose a thunder blast at Weavel, Vod, and Ane, sending the three of them flying away like bowling pins while it's green, bee-hive barrier shields flared into existence, blocking Kanden's volt driver shots and Weavel's battle hammer blasts.

Imix and Hyqua both swirled into the fight, rising into the air, the fiery pryomental letting loose a torrent of burning plasma at Sho'kra'eam, but the thing turned to the source of the plasma and with a single command, utilized it's technology to exert control over time, locking the plasma blast in a stasis field. "Impossible…" Imix muttered before Sho'kra'eam utilized it's god like technology to create relativistic gusts of wind, the very air seeming to explode as the near light speed winds moved together so fast that their atoms ignited in nuclear fire, flinging Imix away as the sky seemed to ignite in a blinding blaze. "Roj'vlak riding a sidehopper!" Krazavlad cursed, swearing to an Utraghian deity of misfortune as his visors polarizers blocked out the nuclear light, Imix being flung aside by the colossal explosion, contained in burning red tendrils miles long by stasis fields.

Hyqua tried to bring the water in Sho'kra'eam's storms to bear against the thing, but with a click of the stormbringer's fingers, lightning surged out of the storm cells and leapt into the hydromental with sunlike fury, the battlefield once again being lit up as the thunder god let loose an ear piercing roar, oxygen being concentrated into regions with it's uncanny powers while small surges of lightning lashed down to ionize the air in certain areas, giving way to massive bolts of lightning that used the added ionization and hyperoxygenated air to make massive explosions that flung Sylux's team in every which direction.

Sylux came to his senses as lightning surged across his shield, having been flung hundreds of meters by the furious Xik'kri'vik's assault. He looked up and saw Imix and Hyqua flying up to it again, trying to keep it off balance with their weapons while Kanden and Weavel joined in, firing away while Krazavlad's pulse cannon shot out into the sky, seeming to cause the Xik'kri'vik some discomfort as the Pulse shots reacted unusually with it's shield, making strong pinging sounds and flashing white instead of just appearing to deflect the blasts at an angle. Immediately, Sylux dashed back into the fight, stopping his superhumanly quick dash rapidly as he launched himself into the air with a shinesparking screw attack combination that actually seemed to knock Sho'kra'eam off balance, slamming into it's shield and causing it to jolt backwards as Sylux fired off his grappling beam, latching onto it's shield and bringing himself around it, firing his shock coil at it to add some more energy to his shields before flinging off of it and scanning it.

"Analyzing: Decrypting Alien research database code….Decryption complete…Scanning….Scan complete….Sho'Kra'Eam: Subject is a Xik'kri'vik noblewoman of the storm caste, and given the warlike nature of Xik'Kri'Vik society, such a position of authority also entails with it a great deal of physical power. Subject is noted for tactical and strategic ability, as well as working on many "mind control projects" due to it's advanced knowledge of carbon based neurology. But is most famous for the tremendous raw power available to it through it's control over weather systems, electromagnetism, time, things associated with the classical element of air, and gaseous substances. Like much of the Storm case, Sho'Kra'Eam is relatively fragile compared to other caste members of the same rank, but makes up for it with devastating firepower and maneuverability. Extreme caution is advised! Subject's shielding appears to have a weakness to pulse based weaponry." The scan reported to him as he landed next to Weavel and Kanden, relaying the scan data to the rest of his team.

_"+Keep it distracted!+_" Krazavlad shouted into the comms as he turned to Ivan and Severa while Vod and Ane, upon seeing the unusual effects of Krazavlad's pulse cannon, switched to their pulse rifle and pistols respectively and poured out their own fire, creating more of the unusual shield reaction. "Ivan, how's your throwing arm?" The pirate asked, looking at Severa for a brief moment. "Oh quite good comrade but I don't see ho-" The drone started before looking at where Krazavlad glanced at and nodded in realization. "Ooooh…fast ball special… Очень хорошо" He responded as Severa sighed. "Alright, toss me at the fucker." She finally stated as Ivan picked her up as she set her energy scythes to a variable pulse field before Ivan hurled her with arms that could have lifted a battleship, sending her hurtling through the air as she landed atop Sho'kra'eam, resulting in it letting loose a series of enraged screams as she slashed repeatedly at it with her now blue energy scythes, the shields flashing white again and again.

But Sho'kra'eam let loose an angry roar as it let loose a repulsive magnetic field, sending everyone with magnetic susbtances on their bodies flying. Luckily, Sylux, Vod, Ane's, Krazavlad's, and Kanden's suits were of a non-magnetic nature, but the rest were picked up and hurled like match sticks in a storm as Sho'kre'eam shrieked. Krazavlad then activated the jets on his back to launch himself into the air, taking a long slash at it with a pulse energy blade, creating a white gash across it's shield, one that regenerated rather swiftly, but it was damage nonetheless. He turned back and threw an EMP grenade into the gash he made, the orb sailing inside the barrier and then exploding with a blue-white frenzy, briefly stunned the thing as the blast temporarily blinded it.

At this point, Ivan hurled himself into it, slamming into the thing and knocking it out of the air, his massive bulk throwing the colossus down as they sailed towards the ground. As he made impact, Ivan prepared to slam his fists into Sho'Kra'Eam, but the thing hurled the drone back with a massive magnetic thrust even as Severa came up to it to slash at it's shields while Hyqua and Imix let loose their own intense assaults. Krazavlad advanced and fired as rapidly as he could while the rest moved in, firing away at the beast, but Sho'kra'eam created a shockwave of hypersonic wind tendrils that flung those around it out of it's way.

The thing let loose a lancing green ray out of it's mouth, sweeping it around as Sylux dashed in after landing on his feet, prompting the creature to change it's aim to right in front of Sylux, creating a trench in front of him to trip him over. It then growled out as it's translators worked to decipher it's harsh words. "Stupid little boy, I am a god, you are nothing." It growled out in a digital voice, rising from the ground with a few beats of it's wings as it directed it's storms towards the pirate lines. Sylux narrowed his eyes at it. "Blah, blah, blah, rant, rant, rant. Got anything to say that I can't find in a cartoon?" Sylux snarked in a caustically sarcastic tone. "See my power, heir of Alinos." It stated, causing his eyes to widen in shock before it fired forth a sonic blast that sent him flying a good kilometer before he regained his senses and was able to start space jumping back into the fray.

Ivan was trying to punch his way through a magnetic barrier that Sho'kra'eam had formed while Severa was busy dodging incoming tendrils of wind, Kanden and Weavel were locked in temporary stasis fields, Hyqua and Imix were trying to keep thunder clouds trying to rain supercharged lightning on the group away, while Krazavlad, Vod, and Ane were busy doing their best to dodge a flurry of electricity being fired from the Xik'kri'vik's hands. The Xik'kri'vik didn't even seem to be trying particularly hard as it fought nine of the best warriors in the galaxy. "I am Stormbringer, I am death, You are grubs, You are wretches." It boasted as Sylux fired off a flurry of missiles that the thing caught and crushed with a brief flicking of it's magnetic powers.

"Try harder fool." It responded as it turned it's head to sylux and fired off a furious beam of green energy out at him, which the Cylosian youth just barely managed to dodge with a well time backflip, quite surprising given that he had some degree of prescience. More of it's deadly attacks started to sweep across the battlefield, constantly lashing out at the foes gathered to fight it. "Grah, why won't this damn thing go down?" Krazavlad grunted as he brought out his energy shield to deflect an incoming lightning bolt. "Maybe it's not about beating it…" Sylux said as he tried to analyse the situation while the others kept on with their actions. "What do you mean comrade?" Ivan asked as the ground shook from the impact of one of his massive fists into the magnetic shield.

"What I mean is that while this bozo might be a bit out of our league, we're keeping it from going out there and wreaking havoc on our lines. But maybe…just maybe we can hurt it's pride enough to make it run away?" Sylux pointed out as he fired off his shock coil to start draining at the Magnetic shield. "Ahh! Hahaha! You are right comrade!" Ivan said as he managed to shatter the now weakened magnetic shield, prompting a wave of backlash to hit Sho'kra'eam, stopping it's attacks, freeing those kept busy by it's furious assault. In a moment, the group unloaded with everything they had at Sho'kra'eam. A shrill cry went out as the thing teleported away, not wanting to be the first noble to have it's shields depleted by primitives.

"Phew…" Was all Severa could manage as she rolled her shoulders while Weavel grunted a bit. "Alright, that seems to wrap things up on this front. But from what I'm getting, the others aren't doing so hot...hang on…" Krazavlad said, raising a hand as he got an order. "+Fall back, we are evacuating this planet, repeat, we are evacuating. Enemies are breaking through on multiple fronts, further resistance is not possible.+" The Command blurted, and Krazavlad snapped his fingers in outrage when he realized the situation. "It was a diversion!" He snarled, cursing himself for not having seen it sooner. "Throw their biggest, most visible asset at us so we get bogged down while their real punch comes from other directions…gaggghhh…" Krazavlad ranted before stomping his foot.

"Perhaps you should calm down comrade…it is but one battle, and this is war." Ivan pointed out, gesturing to everything in sight to suggest that he was speaking of the universe as a whole. "Big guy's right, we'll have other chances to get at these bastards." Kanden added as the team started to make their way back to their lines, their ships flying out to meet them half way to pick them up. A series of ships shot out into the atmosphere, trying to weave their way past a blockade of alien vessels that had by now more or less swept the pirate fleet away like so much dust before a broom. "+Our fall back point is here…we'll regroup and try to discuss what intel we've got with the commanders.+" Krazavlad stated as he uploaded coordinate data to the other ships before they began a coordinated series of hyperspace jumps, taking multiple, zig sagging jumps to try and prevent the aliens from following, each detacthment making it's own route to maximize the confusion for any pursuers.

Eventually, Sylux's ship exited hyperspace before a space station that he found out to his surprise, was in neutral space. A sort of standoff existed between the various fleets gathered near the massive station, uneasily keeping one another at arms distance, but not quite ready to fire yet. With a sigh, Sylux had his vessel land at the nearest available hanger, exiting his vessel as it touched down and strutting out. A blip appeared on his suit's map, directing him to a specific room in the station. Following the directions given, he came across the other members of the group, sitting before a set of Space Pirate military brass.

This was normal enough, but the centrepiece of the meeting was the biggest shocker. A bat winged, metal plated, emaciated, and frighteningly large shape was sitting some distance away. A barbed tail curved around to take up as little space as possible while a pterodactyl like head glared out at those gathered before it. Ridley, Sylux thought as he sat down at one of the available chairs, which happened to be next to a helmetless Severa, the red headed cyborg giving him a flirtatious wink that he did his best to ignore. "You got here fast." Sylux whispered out to the group. "We took a slightly more direct route." Krazavlad responded before turning back to the gathered commanders.

They passed the report slate, compiled during the somewhat lengthy trip to this out of the way station, to Ridley, whose cybernetic fingers, obviously the recent victim of severe injury, grasped at the slate and downloaded the data into his cybernetic mind. "So it appears the enemy has it's own equivalent to the Hunters, heroes, mercenaries, and what have you of known space." The first commander, of the Utraghian breed, spoke up, grimacing as it looked over the loss reports. "You did remarkably well given the circumstances, but the battle was ultimately a loss for the Confederacy…We withhold payment." Another, of the Talonian breed stated, causing Severa to noticeably twitch, but one look at Ridley quieted any objection she might have had.

"Given our losses across many sectors, we decided some time ago to make contact with our…enemies…" The first commander reported, folding his arms on the table while another snapped it's pincers. "The Federation, Vhozon, Kriken, and other powers have also suffered extensive losses in a short span of time. So, before we sent you out, we began talks for…what's the human phrase?" The Zebesian asked, it's glossy black carapace somewhat imposing in the harsh glare of the room, rented out several days ago. "Unholy Alliance." Ridley finally cut in with a voice that sounded about as pleasant as taking a chainsaw to a chalkboard.

"Yes…that. The Kriken's deep space detection net was sabotaged, as were many others, allowing the invaders to pour on through and seize countless assets completely by surprise. While you were fighting, the invaders took over no less than fifty thousand galaxies in a coordinated lightning offensive and are running rampant through others. " The Urtraghian added, grimacing under it's helmet as it did so. "We are bringing you here in case of any…surprise attacks…additionally, you each are symbols in your own right. Bringing you may dissuade our erstwhile allies from trying to take advantage of this situation." The Talonian revealed, clacking it's fingers on the desk.

* * *

><p>"You want us to do what!?" Samus indignantly asked, having heard the order for retreat. "<em>+Pull back to a designated rendevouz point. The aliens have overwhelmed our defensive lines. I'm sorry Samus, but even as you managed your miracle, they surged forward and overran our positions.+<em>" Marshall Emir responded in a sad voice as Samus piloted her ship towards Federation lines before receiving the new orders. Looking at the coordinates, she set her ship to engage it's hyperdrive, followed by the rest of the bounty hunters as the Federation and Vhozon fleets made a fighting retreat. From what she could see, the Federation and Vhozon ships were doing quite badly, inflicting minimal causalities in space upon the enemies while their own vessels went through theirs like tissue paper.

Soon, her gunship emerged near a space station in neutral space. But the sight of Kriken, Cylosian, Confederate, and vessels belonging to other navies that opposed the federation, caused her heart to skip a beat. She had an idea that the war was going badly, but badly enough to start bargaining with the likes of the Space Pirates? She bit her tongue to hold in a curse even though no one was there to listen to her as her ship landed in the nearest available hanger. She did a double take as she passed by the infamous Delano 7, if Sylux had been called back here from wherever the pirates directed him to go, they must have been having a rough time as well.

Holding back her anger, Samus stepped out of the top exit of her ship and followed some coordinates sent to her by the federation coordinater. She passed by a group of Krikens and their escorting hunters as she met up with the federation dignitaries. To her surprise, Treasury Minister Jacob Boyle was among the dignitaries. What on earth was a treasury minister doing in a foreign relations meeting? She thought as she was greeted with a salute from Admiral Dane and General Malkovich. "Samus, as you can see…we've come together under unusual circumstances." Dane said as she returned, then ceased the salute as they gave the at ease signal. "No kidding." Rundus added as he stepped up, followed by a menagerie of other hunters, some from the same planet she was deployed on, others from other missions.

The group was beckoned to enter the meeting room, a circular stadium where the negotiations would be held. And to her distaste, the Pirates and the federation were slated to sit next to one another. Holding back the rising bile within her, Samus sat herself down and folded her arms as dignitaries, hunters from all over the universe brought themselves to various platforms. But the sight of a gravity suit equipped Sylux taking a seat next to her almost made her do a backflip from surprise. Samus regarded him with a sort of distant curiosity, she wasn't sure who he was. But she swore she recognized some moves that Samuel was fond of in Sylux's fighting style.

He seemed to carry that same pride to his bearing. But short of removing his helmet, there was no way to be sure. Absent mindedly, she reached out for his helmet before a gauntleted hand grabbed hers by the wrist. "Don't." Growled a harsh, inhuman voice, and she turned to see Krazavlad glaring daggers through her. Samus retracted her hand and Sylux scoffed slightly as he waited for the discussion to begin. Finally, a Vhozon juror, clad in strange robes, stepped forth onto the Central podium. "Greetings, dignitaries, guards, and mercenaries. We are gathered here to discuss a very serious threat." He started as the digitrade alien turned to a screen and brought up a display, showing scenes of the Alien's brazen assault on the universe at large.

The Xik'kri'vik, Samus thought, recalling some of her encounters with them and the aftermath of their first war against the cosmos from her earlier days. "So far, they have refused all attempts at making contact and have proven to be entirely hostile to all factions of the cosmos. Thus, we hope that here, we can establish an alliance of those who have decided that perhaps bending knee to the devil we don't know is just simply out of the question." The Vhozon chuckled as a black carapaced Kriken signalled that it wished to speak. "Yes?" The Vhozon asked before the Kriken began.

"I believe we should discuss provisions for helping beleaguered powers." He started up, his chittering voice being translated for the benefit of all. "Aren't we all beleaguered though?" The Urtraghian commander asked, grunting just a bit at the end of it's sentence. "You know what I mean. We must decide on how to share our resources lest we crumble before these invaders." The Kriken ambassador responded snappily. "But how do we know what we can trust giving to the others?" Boyle asked, rising from his seat.

"With respect minister, this is not a time when we can afford to cherry pick what we give to others. We can decide on what the post-war cosmos will like after we've won." The Vhozon responded, nodding serenely at the treasurer. "You mean if we win." A Cylosian ambassador bitterly remarked, glaring at the federation dignitaries. "Such pessimism is tantamount to madness!" An Ulumeathi leager diplomat hoarsely snarled, the reptoid creature standing out of its seat and flicking out it's two forked tongues. "Oh I'm sure we will win when one of the 'esteemed' nations here so treacherously assaulted a neighbour that never made the slightest provocations!" The Cylosian shouted back.

"You know damn well what circumstances lead to the Cylosian war!" Another Federation official shot back. "More lies from the federation!" An angry Zebesian countered, roaring out in a tiger-like voice.

"Oh I'm sorry, did we burn planets for their resources?" Boyle roared, his vein throbbing in his head. "So quick to forget Cylosis, are we?" The Kriken smugly pointed out. "Thank you, at least someone has sense here." The Cylosian remarked, folding his arms in satisfaction. "Oh of course you'll side with them, you cretins make a tidy profit selling them weapons!" A vhozon ambassador accused, standing up out of her seat. "How dare you, you ic-" The Kriken screamed back, it's curse being omitted by the translator. "As I recall, the Krikens have been doing most poorly in this conflict. How much ground have you lost?" Boyle smugly stated. "None that we didn't fight to the last to defend, unlike you cowards who retreat when things go even a little outside of your plans." The Kriken angrily snarled, looking ready to stand up and kill someone. Finally, the lone Ophellian dignitary, a cephalopod like creature that brought itself around on a tripedal suit, slammed it's armoured tentacle on it's desk to silence the arguing.

"Thank you." The Vhozon leading the meeting responded. "The noise was getting to be most unbearable." He grimaced, or he would have, had he the face to preform such an action. Sylux seemed to be have his face nestled in the palm of his hand, frustrated at how little was getting done. "Politicians…" He grumbled, exasperated at the pointless arguing over the dumbest of things, though he did seem to give more than a few glances over to the Cylosians that aroused Samus' suspicions.

* * *

><p>Author's note: Couldn't find a way to fit the Kriken point of view into the story in a smooth way. There's not terribly much to say about this chapter, but it was a tad rushed. The points of view that show how the Xik'kri'vik overran the Federation and Pirate forces is coming up next chapter, as is some more social interaction between the hunters, finally showing some parts of the Kriken front, and delving a bit deeper into Xik'kri'vik society and a show of just how badly the Xik'kri'vik are stomping the established powers of the galaxy. Depending on how long I make the chapter, the finalization of the Alliance and the first joint mission will be assigned.<p>

On another note: There's your Ridley for you!


	9. The darkness of the god-fearers

Some time ago, planet Vesper-80c.

Once again Alice Whitman found herself in the midst of battle. A brief flash warned her of incoming foes. A flash that signified a tank to her side turning into a mass of molten metal, vapour, and the odd whiff of plasma. Then a squad of nine of the stony aliens advanced under a fusillade of fire from another squad, a storm of blue bolts emitting from their staff blasters, kicking up dirt and blasting out massive chunks of flesh and armour from the bodies of her soldiers. The captain lobbed a grenade, her last one, as the damned enemy were so durable and so deadly that throwing a grenade was all but required to startle them enough to bring them down.

A concentrated burst of fire roared out from her company's weapons, managing to pepper the blue shields of one of the aliens enough to make it step back. But a scintillating blue orb was lobbed by the alien's free arms, and with a tiny click, the weapon went off in a massive explosion that blossomed out in all directions. A yellow wave of light incinerated twenty soldiers, while the shockwave flattened two score more, pulverizing their organs while tossing yet more soldiers high into the sky while more squads of the aliens moved through the now massive breach in federation lines. A machine gunner busily trying to fan dust away from his field of vision met the energized phalanged head of one of the alien's staff blasters, the warrior utilizing it's double headed weapon like an enormous club.

Despite the gunner's thick helmet and reinforced power armor, he was struck dead in an instant, his skull exploding as the mace head swept through his head. Bits of brains and metal scraps struck Alice's visor as another explosion knocked her to the ground. She felt clawed feet on her chestplate as the creatures overran her position. Before blissful unconsciousness took her, she saw a floating hover-tank, it's angular and mean form rotating a turret that housed a barrel that ended in a stylized beast head opening up to allow for a roiling orb of blue-white plasma to leap out and explode into the mortar crew she was entrusted to guard like a miniature supernova.

As her vision began to blur, she saw some of the creatures hanging over her, one of them in bulkier and more ornate armour than the others, probably a higher ranking soldier of some kind, the other in the standard infantry outfit. They looked at her, seeming to scan her before realizing she was alive. The shorter one raised it's staff to prepare to brain her, but a thundering roar attracted their attention. Then she saw nothing.

A titanic colossus walker strode forth, rising from behind a mountain, the olive-drab machine bearing the symbols of the federation army as a mechanical god stepped into the fray. Built like a very heavy set knight dressed in full plate with bunkers and fortresses built into it, the almost dwarf shaped walker let loose a barrage of firepower at the aliens before it, blanketing them in a cascade of firepower that tore apart the terrain with the fury of a petulant child lost in lego-town.

The machine immediately attracted a furious barrage of firepower that began to pepper it's shields with a rage that startled the pilots of the awesome titan, who were used to near invincibility against the weapons of "small units." But supporting units quickly came behind the colossus, tanks and IFVs rolling up to disgorge what firepower they could into the aliens. But even with the advantage of surprise, the alien's superior technology and unbending zeal made this battle a bloody one. Tanks erupted in flame, soldiers were cut down like wheat before a scythe, but the men and women of the federation army kept on pressing.

Buck Private Kyle van Reinen exited the back of his War-wasp class IFV as it lowered it's troop ramp, laying down a barrage of auto-railcannon fire and firing off some of it's anti-tank missiles, which screamed forth at almost relativistic speeds; bearing lethal shaped anti-matter warheads that were sure to ruin somebody's day. The private had exited training camp less than a month ago, and today would be the first time he had ever seen combat. Only seventeen, he had left his home on the agri-world of Hyvras to serve against the space pirates, and was as surprised as anyone else when a completely different enemy emerged. He had seem some of the war-reels during the brief "know your enemy" seminar he had attended once the Federation had some idea of what they were fighting. The "stonies" they were called in the war-reel.

The holovid depicted an enemy that was brutish, barbaric, and engaged in cannibalism and ritual sacrifice; soldiers so hidebound to dogma that they had no chance against the flexible and innovative federation military, wearing outlandish uniforms that made them easy prey for army marksmen, clad in clunky, restrictive armour that made them slow and sluggish, poor military design philosophy that created badly designed vehicles more fit for a parade than a war, a brutal imperialistic system that made fighters who would leap at the chance to escape their oppressive commanders and surrender to experience the liberties of federation culture, and using overly flashy and impractical weapons that could be dodged with ease.

The reel was wrong on virtually every count, save for that by federation standards; their power suits were outlandish, making them look like living, insectoid statues clad in what could have looked like armoured Aztec warrior dresses to an observer from a long gone era now only studied by history nuts. "Fuckers are tall ain't they?" Said one soldier as he leapt into a deep trench before throwing up a gun-drone into the air. The disc shaped object flew into the air before unfurling wings and engines and flying forth, unloading with it's dual carbines that raked into the ground before a dozen bolts of energy punched into it's hull and blasted out it's circuitry.

Kyle had to agree, the shortest of the things looked eight or nine feet tall, not counting their odd, raised helmets which almost looked like the Pope's mi…mit…hat thing. Damn, he could never remember what it was called, which as a practicing catholic, embarrassed him a little. "What in God's universe are they?" He muttered, which seemed to attract their ire as a massive walker of their own stepped forth, the titan resembling an six limbed insectoid gorilla, with a more brutish version of the distinctive heads of the aliens, like a squashed funnel with a massive gem-like eye in the centre, seven smaller compound eyes surrounding that one, two antennae jutting out of the temples at an upward angle, and a row of bladed mandibles that rippled like a wave. Two inward curving fins jutted from it's upper shoulders, and small gems dotted the thing as it stood up on it's hind legs and let loose it's challenge towards the Federation colossus.

"Jesus…" He muttered, drawing a look from the soldier next to him. Kyle then frowned, remembering that this girl subscribed to an alien dogma worshipping a bizarre pantheon of god. It certainly made for a…interesting date. "Jr'vk's horns!" The girl next to him shouted as she saw one of the alien's hover tanks take aim at their IFV. She grabbed him by the head and pulled him down before kicking into the sides of the trench to bury the both of them in protective dirt as a blue-white orb of plasma impacted their IFV and melted it's way into the vehicle's centre before going supernova within, eradicating everything within twenty meters and causing death, destruction, and injury to an even greater distance.

Those who hadn't been ducking were fried as the energy wave washed over them, and even through his power armour and the layers of dirt, he felt an intense heat, as if he had stripped off and walked into a desert at mid-day. It was intensely uncomfortable, but he survived at least. Shoving off the dirt, she and him brought their heads out. "Thanks Hylia." He managed while his suit collected and then discharged the sweat it found on him after blasting him with a wave of cold air. He felt more than just his dignity shrink as he took a look around. The colossus was badly damaged, but the incoming giant, decorated with lunar symbols, a moon gorilla he guess he'd call it, charged forth and tore the head off of the colossus with a swing while one of the jaguar like drones leapt at the top of a surviving IFV and began clawing it's way in. "Shit shit shit shit, not good!" Hylia cursed repeatedly as she debated her next actions. "Where's the sarge?" Kyle asked, no longer connected to the digital overview and video assistant, or DOVA; which kept him connected to the rear commanders and would relay him orders directly.

"Right heressssk lovebirds, grah!" Hissed the reptilian sergeant as it brought itself out of a foxhole it dug into the trench. "What do we do?" Kyle asked as the squad's machine gunner's entire upper body was blasted apart by a glancing hit from one of the staff blasters. "Stay down…wait for some to try and check heressssk, hit them with an ambush." Sargeant Hj'rsk responded as he signalled his squad and the remains of a few broken squads to fall in. "Were the reels wrong?" Kyle asked naively, not yet exposed to the idea that his beloved nation would pull just about any kind of bullshit it needed to get more bodies in the front. "Those thingsssk? There'sssk a few words for them. First, bullshit, second, propaganda, thirdsssk, blatant lies." The sergeant chortled as his elongated helmeted head dared to peek out beyond the trench before ducking back down.

"Dig in quickly, try your best to hide." Hj'rsk ordered as he moved to burrow himself into the ground while the others brought out their entrenching tools or whatever other means they preferred for digging to make holes for them to hide in while the enemy advanced under the shadow of their moon gorilla. Hylia and Kyle dug in together, carving out a hole for them to squeeze in, weapons just barely poking out as they felt trodding footsteps approaching. A strange chittering came out as mandibles rippled together before one stepped down. It hissed as it looked around. It reached down to collect a body; that of the machine gunner, perhaps as a trophy to signify it's kill. Thirty eight soldiers sprung out and opened fire upon the creature after lobbing no less than six grenades at it, buffeting it around while a storm of fire raked it's geometric shields, but even with such overkill, the thing needed nearly ten seconds of constant fire from all directions to bring down, it's confused shrieks going through the air as it finally died.

"These things don't have monitors that would call in reinforcements if one drops, right?" Kyle asked timidly as he poked the now thoroughly holed up corpse. Though Hj'rsk's saurian snout would not have allowed such an expression, he probably would be scowling under his helmet. "Shit, get outssk now!" Hj'rsk ordered, moving quickly as a horrendous fusillade of fire was directed to their trench. Two of the soldiers were caught by some kind of plasma caster that spat forth a great gout of billion degree material like a flamethrower, frying them instantly as the plasma washed over the trenches, threatening to devour the others as it reduced anything it touched into a roiling sea of electrons and nuclei. A tank's barrel roared like the eruption of a great volcano as it rolled forth to challenge the aliens; and was promptly gutted like a fish by a stabbing plasma lance that seared through it's armour before dispersing to envelop the crew in a deadly sea of plasma.

They didn't even have time to scream as the aliens marched forth; their cloaks and armor changing colour to match that of the background as the front half advanced while the back half laid down a monstrous barrage of fire, the soldiers moving forth to create a double envelopment while the crack of thunder made by displaced air signified the arrival of a force of teleporting soldiers who closed off any retreat for the rescue forth. But as the small platoon ran, the ground exploded beneath them, giving way to a massive stony serpentine beast. It's teal under-plating and symbology of rotting corpses would have identified it as a weapon of the death god worshipping caste, but as a human; Kyle had know idea of knowing the subtleties of Xik'kri'vik culture. It's head was of a similar, but more elongated and vaguely reptilian sort than those of it's masters, while eight smaller serpents came out of it's sides like a grotesque series of arms, or tentacles depending on who one asked.

The Death snake swayed it's main head left and right before lashing forward, fangs appearing in it's horizontal mandibles as it grabbed one of the soldiers and pierced his armour like nothing, injecting horrendously virulent necrotoxins that reduced the man inside into nothing more than liquid goop while the other heads of the snake began firing off beams of concentrated anti-gravity that would literally repel holes in whatever they fired at, blasting right through the dirt and sand while another trooper's head was cut clean off by a sweep of the anti-gravity beams. "Oh holy father who art in heaven…" Kyle whimpered as he soiled himself in unrelenting horror as the monstrosity coiled it's stony body around another soldier and crushed her into a bloody pulp like a can of tomato juice being stepped on by an elephant.

"Oh for fuck's sakesssk, did I get a bunch of thin scales and blunt-fangs for soldiers?" Hj'rsk growled gutturally as he took out his special issue energy-sheath round pistol and blade and called the thing's attention by firing off a few rounds as it sprayed it's venom around, the corrosive and poisonous substance burning apart the vegetation before it slithered towards Hj'rsk and grabbing him with it's jaws while the reptoid jabbed at one of it's eyes with his blade, causing it to shriek before it started to shake it's head to try and worry him apart while it's mandibles unhinged. "He's trying to eat me! Don't let him swallow me, don't let him swallow me!" The sergeant hissed as he fired at the thing's face, snapping Kyle out of his stupor while he fired off at the beast, soon prompting the survivors to fire at the creature as it raised up it's head and engulfed the squad sergeant. "Gods no!" Hylia screamed as she fired off a grenade from her rifle's underslung attatchment, knocking the creature back.

"_+Huh, this thing's mechanicalssssk, don't see any organs, must have run out of venom too. Keep it occupied, gonna see how I can mess up this jk'lop from insidesssk_." He hissed while the remaining federation soldiers opened fire on the thing. Bullets clattered off it's shielding, but as the thing made for a slithering charge at Hylia, it's centre-most optic exploded out in a storm of shards. A shriek came from the creature as a blade found a chink in it's inner armor, stabbing out before being swept around to create a hinge from which Hj'rsk could yank it's head off, deactivating the machine as he clambered out. "Nice work sarge!" One trooper enthusiastically stated as he went up to give him a high five, which the reptilian sergeant paused a moment before responding, trying to remember what the gesture meant.

But as they went, a series of massive explosions thundered throughout the area, bringing their attention to the east, where angry mushroom clouds were rising, followed by the thundering motion of many of the "moon gorillas" along with what appeared to be floating fortresses that conformed to the aesthetic tastes of the strange aliens. Small dots and figures could be seen, almost certainly other units in the alien army that joined the massive advance. The return fire from the federation and vhozon forces was strong, but it was dying away. Kyle's musing was interrupted when Hylia called their attention elsewhere. "Sarge, I found some vehicles we can use!" She shouted, motioning over to abandoned vehicles from a motorized infantry regiment, which were in the middle of a large field which had recently cooled igneous rock around in the oddest of places. "Well I'll be damned…" Kyle muttered as a virtual horde of fighters roared over head

* * *

><p>Lieutenant Jimak Zolra checked her fightercraft's systems as her aircraft roared past a graveyard of derelict vehicles. To say this battle was going poorly would be an understatement, but she had a job to do. She checked that her hydrospheric suit was functional, her tentacles filling the humanoid suit rather nicely as she punched in some final commands. "+Po'rag leader reporting.+" Her commlink reported, the name Po'rag referring to a lethal alien predator that bore some resemblance to the wyverns of earth myth, if one could get past the eight eyes and cuttlefish like head. "+<em>Po'rag 1 reporting<em>.+" Another voice came in. "_Po'rag 2 reporting._+" Another voice came in amongst the buzzing of three dozen smallcraft wings, over three thousand fighters, fighter-bombers, strike craft, bombers, ground attack planes, and interceptors in all; virtually anything the federation could get into the air in the area, joined with twenty "Vi'ral'I", a rough Vhozon equivalent of a smallcraft wing, consisting of a hundred craft each. Added to that was over seven and a half thousand local militia and defense force aircraft, not space capable or as well designed as the federation and vhozon navy craft, but they provided mass of numbers like nothing else could, save for the twelve and a half thousand odd drones.

A chorus of more Po'rag wing members chimed in, before it was finally her turn. "_+Po'rag 36 reporting_.+" She said as her craft ripped through a cloud towards the field of battle towards giants that would have dwarfed Godzilla, and she would know; she avidly watched the series, which had somehow managed to keep on going strong despite it being nearly a hundred and twenty four thousand years old. Of course, humanity was fond of many examples of her kind's culture, but given that the Jil'ark were one of the first species that humans met on friendly terms and were the ones to recommend them into the federation, cultural intermixing was inevitable, why; she even adopted a human child, a girl she named "Klr'mas" when translated from her language. "+I am reading a massive number of hostile bogeys…Gods below.+" Her wing leader stated as their sensors began to detect a colossal number of incoming craft. The double gear craft, designated storm disks by the federation; rose at the rear of the formation, while the threaded crescent shaped fighters and fighter bombers, the two classes distinguished by size and colour and designated the Quetzal and the Coatl respectively; made up the enemy center, finally; at the front was a swarm of interceptors built to resemble eyes between the bases of two backwards facing horns, one at the top and one at the bottom; the Oculi.

"+_Break formation, engage at will!_+" Her wing leader barked as she banked to the left, letting loose a missile while bolts of lightning leapt out from the Storm disks, ripping apart countless craft as a massive small craft battle began to rage. Her own stiletto class fighter let loose a pair of missiles at the nearest oculi, the first missile causing it's shields to flash, the second causing it to spin around in the air before regaining it's flight pattern. Luckily, with space folding tech being standard; she had plenty of missiles. Another pair of missiles were let loose from her craft, and the eye drone exploded in a blaze of glory while her silvery aircraft roared forth, spiralling through a weave of energy bolt fire. All around, explosions were going off as munitions and aircraft exploded forth in a series of fireballs that lit up the sky. The enemy was easily more advanced than they were, their vehicles being the superiors of the Federation and Vhozon's craft in every category, especially durability and firepower, but it seemed that most of the enemy pilots didn't have actual combat experience, they seemed well trained, but training was never a match for actual experience in battle.

She spotted a fighter coming in around, sniffing for her six while she pulled a tight corkscrewing turn downwards. The blue skies of this world were darkened with the menacing form of a horde of aircraft in the thousands. Part of her hoped that command would send in reinforcements, but another part of her was worried that there wouldn't be any enemies left to bring down. Trusting in both her inhuman physiology and her craft's inertial dampeners, she pulled a turn so tight that lesser aircraft would have been ripped apart and unguarded pilots would have been turned into nothing but mush, reshifting her thrusters to bring her around to face the front of the enemy craft to play a deadly game of chicken. She let her missiles out in ripple fire mode while her cannons ripped through the sky, firing slugs, energy sheathed slugs, and energy bolts at the enemy craft. But the enemy craft soaked up the firepower like a champion, and it's own return fire was far less survivable, already doing heavy damage to her shielding and forcing her to pull down to avoid further damage, yanking to the left to avoid another dog fight and then up again to evade the shrapnel from an exploding bomber that tried to break away to make an attack run.

The fighter that was pursuing her was dogged to say the least, simply bull rushing it's way through any obstacles in it's path, and with it's powerful shielding and thick armor, it could take punishment that her stiletto class fighter had to dodge around. Flexing the tentacles in her suit to squeeze the fingers, Jimak screamed past some of the storm disks, but rather than firing at nearby objects indiscriminately, they homed in on her and let loose two lightning bolts that crippled her aircraft, gutting it and tearing off it's wings with mere glancing strikes. A third lightning bolt incinerated her craft and she was sent on a quick road to the afterlife.

* * *

><p>Sho'ilm'osk Nid'vor'opi Sho'urs'I'v checked it's storm disk's functions as it sped into the melee, firing off bolts of inconceivably powerful lightning that brought down more and more of the primitive's aircraft with each blast. And the Sho'ilm'osk could release many, many lightning blasts. Incoming missiles were swatted out of the air by small arcs of electricity, while larger ones vaporized their craft or ripped them apart like children's toys with each blast. The storm goddess caste siblings in the craft let loose a contented trill as their kill count hit one hundred. "Such poor craftsmanship, a short war, we shall have." One crewmate commented as their holoprojections showed a bolt of lightning strike out and obliterate one bomber before arcing out and destroying five other smallcraft, these bolts then going out and vaporizing large chunks of over a dozen more.<p>

The storm disk or "Sho'ilm'osk" in it's language parked itself in the center of a large mass of enemies and let loose a blossoming cascade of electric death, letting loose bolts of lightning in every direction. The storm disk was soon surrounded by fireballs as more and more of the primitive's aircraft were obliterated. It's only fear was that the war would be over and these primitives would be brought to heel before it could win more war glory. These wretches weren't even half the warriors the free league were. Such a pity, Sho'urs'l'v was looking forward to a nice, long war, but it supposed that it could not question the god's will, nor that of the glorious Zyc'kra'val, blessed be his name. It had spent so much time in wars against other primitives and minor conquests to climb up to the rank of a Nid'vor'opi of a Sho'ilm'osk that the thought of the biggest war the dominion had seen in nearly one and a half million Jki'lor'ma' being over so soon just seemed like a shame. Hmm…curious, the sensors seemed to be picking up vehicle activity on the ground in an area previously stated to be clear. Better inform command and tell them to send some troops to pursue.

* * *

><p>The half platoon of troopers did their best to pack into an IFV with three fire teams filing into recon vehicles, and a quartet fitting into an APC. "Nk'lrk have we got this thing moving?" Hj'rsk asked of the designated driver. "Yes sir, thing should run beautifullysssk." The Tyrmnk mechanic responded as the IFV lurched forward at great speed, followed by three escorting Timber wolf class recon vehicles and a Zoomer class APC. The recon vehicles carried five each, while the Styracosaurus class IFV was packed with well over a dozen men and women. They raced into the forest, crossing into the wet, humid coastal areas while leaving behind the dry inland steppes and deserts of the inner continent. "What's the plan sarge?" Hylia asked somewhat nervously as she eased down, the vehicle's inertial dampeners making for a smooth ride. "We head for a population centre, hopefully the localsssk can help us link back up with command. We'll pick up any survivors we can too. Anyone who can fight and is armed getsssk priority." Hj'rsk responded hoarsely, sucking in some water from his suit's dispensers as he finished talking.<p>

"Gunner, see anything?" Hj'rsk asked Kyle. "No, nothi- wait…someone check the scanners to confirm, I thought I saw something move…not sure if it was just an animal…" He answered, gritting his teeth as worry began to seep into his bones. The navigator took a glance at the radar screen, at first it was empty, and then came a few blips and the unmistakable image of shielding. "Shit, we got bogeys." The navigator responded, his hydrosuit gurgling as it put fresh oxygen into the water. "How many?" Hj'rsk demanded. "+Sir we got sun jaguars!+" Came in a frantic cry from one of the Timber Wolves. "Put it on the holoprojectors!" Hj'rsk commanded, and the vehicle hummed as the walls seemed to fade, now being used to show what was outside with it's holographic systems. And sure enough, a pack of what the federation had designated Sun Jaguars were tearing their way through the forests. Eight powerful limbs designed for slashing and running, eight gemlike eyes all equipped with solar lance emitters, and powerful mandibles that could rip open metal with ease and a long, whiplike tail that ended in an energized mace. These were drones designed for pursuit, ground reconnaissance, and escorting infantry.

As they drove into a ravine, one of the Sun jaguars ran along the half-pipe like walls of the gorge, maintaining it's footing through sheer speed as it tried to get on top of the fleeing federation troopers. "Shoot it shoot it shoot it!" One recon driver commanded as the gunner wheeled around the mounted gatling gun and let loose a stream of energy sheathed bullets propelled forth by magnetism. A stream of yellow rounds emerged from the multiple barrels of the gun while the woman riding shotgun took control of the mounted sideways facing multi-weapon. The jaguar seemed to have preternatural reflexes, studying where the gunner was aiming the gatling gun and using that to constantly dodge his fire. "Myli what the flying fuck are you doing!?" The driver shouted at the co-pilot who finally found the automatic gauss 8 gauge shotgun mode.

"Seeing if this bag of rocky shit can dodge buckshot." She responded as she let loose with the weapon, sending lethal spikes flying out so much faster than sound that the air behind the rounds ignited in great tails of fire. "Eat it and die!" Myli shouted, the tentacles in her suit coiling into the fingers and keeping a bead on the jaguar, eventually catching it by the frontmost left leg and causing it to spin off the walls of the ravine while the minigunner obliterated it in a storm of yellow rounds. "Yeah get some!" The gunner enthusiastically cried as the rear gunner checked his medium machine gun. "Thor's beard! Got more incoming!" He shouted as the rest of the pack made their presence known. A yellow beam struck out of the centremost blue-optic of the nearest jaguar, cutting into the ground at their side while the rear gunner opened up with his machine gun.

Yellow streaks of energy sheathing deadly bullets flew out at the jaguar, but the drone twisted it's body to bring it out of the way while it fired off yet another burst of energy from it's optics. Then the turret of the lead IFV turned around to face the jaguar, it's autocannon sending forth hypersonic spikes of metal that ripped apart the air behind them in a massive streak of fire with a long, continuous roar coming out as the sound barrier shouted it's protestations. The first jaguar took a few shots from this massive weapon before crumbling apart as it's shields and armor splintered, revealing a mess of machinery beneath. But another one of the infernal jaguars was clambering on the side of the ravine, it's lithe legs and terrible claws moving in a virtual blur as it turned some of it's optics to keep a bead on it's target, calculating for a way to jump onto the top before kicking off the rocky Cliffside and jumping at the APC.

The jaguar landed on the APC, the impact causing it to shudder as the sun jaguar tried to sink it's claws in to seek some purchase. "Aw hell no, get that cat off our ride." The driver angrily shouted as the gunner swung the twin heavy machine gun turret to face the vicious mechanical predator. "Come on, come on." The gunner chanted as she took aim at the thing's bestial head before opening fire. Hypervelocity slugs coated in deadly energy slammed into the shields of the sun jaguar, but it didn't flinch. In frustration, the fourth person, Lance corporal Ky'det looked around and seized an anti-vehicle missile launcher before popping out of a top hatch after loading in a warhead. "Open wide dirtbagsssk." He grinned as he fired off a missile from the launcher, which he gladly noted was larger and fired bigger missiles than the missile arm cannons of the marine corps, the jarheads could keep their popguns, the army subscribed to "bigger is better." A missile streaked out of the shoulder mounted tube, and the olive drab clad soldier was greeted with a shaped explosion that punched through the jaguar's shields, fried most of it's head and cored a hole into it's chest.

Still firmly stuck on the top of the vehicle the corporal sunk back into his vehicle and did his best to dislodge the claws of the jaguar, letting the monster just roll off. But a sudden sonic boom alerted them to the presence of something in the sky. Something that could best be described as a flying, elongated version of the alien's heads with stubby wings added and a hell of a lot of iconography of death, along with teal markings to go with it's standardized earthy yellow colour, was now in pursuit of them. On it's sides, behind it's weapon mount wings, were two swivel mounted anti-grav and ion-drive thrusters, and the back end of it broke into a crescent shaped tail. The antennae bore lethal anti-gravity beamers, the mandibles housed homing monomolecular disc launchers, the stubby wings possessed missile launchers, the belly had an energy bomblet generator, the eyes bore energy beamers, and the cockpit was designed to resemble the central eye of the alien's ugly heads.

Later on, these would be designated at "Death head gunships" but until then, the federation troopers below would call them "big ass fucking ugly flying thing" or BAFUFT. The pilot inside the craft let loose a stream of energy bolts from the seven energy beamers as the agile craft swivelled around to the sides. "What the hell!? Someone get some fire poured on that son of a bitch!" Hj'rsk shouted into his intercom, prompting the main turret of his IFV to turn and start pumping hypervelocity shells at the gunship, which deftly dodged to the side and screamed over head, dropping down a barrage of crackling blue energy bombs. The ground before them began to ignite and combust in a coruscating inferno of energy, and other reinforcements were being called to the chase.

* * *

><p>Human capital city and Federation HQ in human dominated space; Amsterdam; Planet Earth:<p>

"Citizens of the federation!" A public announcement boldly stated to grab everyone's attention, the symbol of the galactic federation being proudly displayed. "An enemy from beyond the boundaries of known space has come to assault your homes, your livelihood, and your very lives. An enemy known only as the Xik'kri'vik, or as they call themselves when translated from their foul tongue "The dominion of the holy gods." They saw our religious freedom and took offense! For their bloody high priests couldn't comprehend a society where one could worship anyone they pleased, or not worship at all!" The broadcast went on in various screens, displaying a column of CGI Xik'kri'vik sentinels goose stepping through a street of what was imagined to be the Xik'kri'vik homeworld, which looked suspiciously like the set of a recent documentary on hyperancient Aztec culture spruced up to be more futuristic looking. Then it displayed these soldiers tearing down churches and temples and gunning down atheist and agnostic gatherings, shouting in utter gibberish with subtitles with such moustache twirling comments such as "Our gods will not tolerate your freedom!" or "To not worship at all is an offense to our dark lords!"

Jamie Elderson, accompanying his parents and siblings on a walk to the store, stopped to observe the broadcast. "What are they talking about mom?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. "Those new aliens everyone's all riled up about." She responded as the broadcast went on. "The Xik'kri'vik want to tear down our democracy and replace it with an absolutist theocracy where we'd all bend knee to their Lord High Dominator, whom they worship as a god!" The broadcast warned, showing a computer generated obese Xik'kri'vik in a hodgepodge of various religious regalia meant to make it look as foolish as possible. Then it showed the "lord high dominator" going to a global map of the galaxy and greedily grabbing at it. "Too cowardly to even declare war, they invaded our fair nation in a surprise attack, catching us off guard." It declared, showing stunted Xik'kri'vik warriors attacking tall marines and soldiers from behind.

"They engage in brutal atrocities, slaughtering indiscriminately, forcing their savage religion on us, stripping people of their rights, and taking countless slaves!" The alarmist propaganda went on, showing the aftermath of one of their battles, a burnt out city with pyramids of dead bodies, weeping widows, children, and parents. "They expect us to surrender, but we will never give in! We will never surrender to their barbaric ways or give up our liberty to know their yoke." It declared pompously, showing soldiers freeing captive civilians and easily gunning down legions of the aliens. "Already we are mobilizing our great economy and people to fight a war to free the universe. They sought to bring their tyranny here, but now we won't stop until the light of democracy penetrates into their dark empire and we cast down their theocratic madness once and for all. We will fight for our freedom and their freedom. We will fight, and we will win!" The broadcast went on, showing a montage of troops getting armed and ships getting built, with weapons and robots being constructed for war before showing a mass of soldiers charging forward and scything down the aliens at the steps of a temple, fighting their way up until they break into the building, riding upon a tank that smashed through the walls of the structure, and search around, easily bringing down the guards with punches to the face and finding the overweight lord high dominator cowering behind a throne and carting him off to justice.

Then it shifted to showing the citizens of the dominion cheering the federation and embracing the ideals of democracy and an idealized free market economy, bringing down monuments of their old government and leaping to join the federation. "All this can happen if you do your part for the war effort! Buy war bonds, work extra hours, and save materials useful for the soldiers in the frontline." The broadcast concluded, once again fading to the image of the federation's galaxy symbol. "That has got to be the cheesiest piece of shi-" One of the older siblings stated before being cut off "Hayley!" The mother scolded. "Well, at least it's better made than the one telling us to accept the Cylosian war." The dad shrugged as they went about their business.

But in the shadows, something invisible shimmered as it crawled forth, a death snake had been part of the spy ring that had already dug deep into the federation and gathered intelligence on the primitives. The tunnels that the Clocktrix made in their raid on the Earth five years ago were still very much usable to the Xik'kri'vik. But of course, the return to the lands of the free league was planned long in advance. Homo sapiens hadn't even evolved when the first seeds of the return were planted. The spies and assassins of the moon and death castes in particular had done an excellent job with manipulating the politics behind the scenes to cause strife, discord, and weakness in their enemies in preparation for the upcoming war. Soon, it would be time to introduce these ants to the boot of the dominion.

* * *

><p>Kriken Empire:<p>

When the war dawned on the Kriken empire, it dawned in fire. The moon caste commander had done his duty well, the outermost sensors of the Kriken empire were offline, and now the largest invasion force yet seen was ready. Billions upon billions of capital ships streamed through hyperspace and exited all over a vast front, while others went behind, going deeper into the vast and constantly overpopulated Kriken Empire. On quadrillions of different worlds, the Krikens looked into the sky and beheld vast armadas of ships shaped vaguely like horrific sea predators. Some seemed somewhat like cuttlefish, others like anamolacarids, others like enormous millipedes , some like nothing any human or kriken eye had ever seen. All part of Xik'vil'rax's masterstroke, an assault of such unrelenting size and fury across so wide a space that an effective defence was all but impossible. The other nations were also now starting to receive full invasion forces as opposed to the scouting forces that had been seen before. Any prior conceptions about the scale of the assault upon known space before were completely shattered as an army that would have given the number of every grain of sand on every beach and desert of the earth a serious run for it's money in sheer vastness. The Xik'kri'vik war machine would show these primitives what the real meaning of warfare was.

Trace, a prince of the Kriken empire, was on the world of Hjaalrun, a fairly cold and quite often very marshy world when the invasion came, where he and a group of hunters were preparing for a raid into the federation. But a new enemy came upon them. His mind at first refused to comprehend or accept what he saw before him. "I-impossible…." Walker stated, breaking the silence, the vaguely humanoid mass of fungus whispering in hushed awe. "How did they get here without us knowing?" Irvix; a contained mass of electricity that wore a special harness not unlike Imix and Hyqua. "Dunno 'ow, but let's squash 'em!" The ever well spoken Hyrag Khstap, a greenskinned, hairless apelike brute of a semi-fungoid creature roared raucously, his seemingly ramshackle power armour belching out smoke as it burned some fuel gel. "I would advise caution, there is no way of telling wha-" The mantis like Jyrkl hunter named Ikcth'kvzk, clad in strong and not particularly pleasing to the human eye power armour that emphasized the strength of it's forelimbs before she was cut off by the landing of the first drop pod. The serpent decorated cylinder then opened up to reveal the first wave of attackers. This drop pod was then followed by countless more until it seemed that it was raining with these.

Trace got his first look at the invaders and gaped with recognition, they matched the warriors depicted on the ancient Chozo hieroglyphs almost perfectly. What were they called? Ah yes, the Xik'kri'vik. But these weren't a vestige of the past, they were a vast and merciless army that had come to ravage the present. A Kriken police squad opened fire with their lesser imperialists, spraying the aliens with bright red lasers, but the Xik'kri'vik lowered their staff blasters and reduced the police troopers into rapidly expanding clouds of plasma while the bolts went on to blast holes into buildings. They charged out with a deafening fury, their shrieks and trilling being almost as loud as the explosions and crashes of war. Trace fired at the head of one and was relieved to know that they could die when the imperialist punctured through it's shielding and head, leaving the thing to flop to the ground. But the things easily determined the source of the shot and fired off a deadly barrage as they began to deploy heavier weaponry while their smallcraft shrieked over the skies, raining down death.

Anti-aircraft guns and anti-orbital weaponry roared out, doing their best to trade blows with the invaders while gun emplacements fired into the ranks of the enemy. Hyrag grabbed one of the aliens in his massive power claw and smashed it into the ground headfirst, repeating the action no less than six times before throwing it away, firing off his dual auto-cannons and letting out a roar. Irvix let loose a vast storm of electricity, aided by Walker's telekinetic onslaught. Ikcth swatted down some of the aliens while did his best to pick them off with his imperialist, but they were difficult to bring down and seemed to be without number. An armoured car slammed into the midsts of the aliens, sending many of them scattering about like bowling pins before transforming into a fair sized robot. Another one of the hunters called forth by the Krikens for what would have been an assault into the federation. Swinging his hook hand in a wide arc, he sent more of them hurtling aside before shrinking from their vicious staff blaster fire. "LKJW-2 pull back, provide us some covering fire while we make for a retreat." Trace commanded as he entered triskelion mode, weaving through a surging horde of Kriken local defense forces and maddened civilians.

A numberless tide of neckless krikens surged towards the invaders, firing off what weapons they had as they sought to make the enemy choke on their dead. The hunters made their retreat towards their ships a fighting one, trace lunging at a particularly tall and ornately dressed Xik'kri'vik sentinel, knocking the warrior to the ground as he scratched and clawed at the thing's shields, focusing his own shielding into blades to cut into the thing. It was an intensely personal way to kill something, something most snipers weren't used to, being the kind who saw their kills as nothing more than distant objects to put holes in, but at this range, Trace could feel every aspect of the struggle, which alerted him to when the commander stopped struggling as the life faded from it's body following his stabbing his left leg into it's centremost eye and through it's brain. But the emergence of a death snake forced him to pull back to evade the heinously lethal mechanoids anti-gravity beams that repelled holes into the ground with merciless force while the serpentine mechanoid shrieked at the Kriken prince.

"Hyrag, gut that thing!" Trace ordered as he leaped to the side of a staff swing from a sentinel, prompting the immense greenskinned brute to leap at the mechanical snake, though the serpent dwarfed even the twelve foot tall and bulky power armour clad Trogik. His mass gave him the momentum to knock the machine to the ground, where a raised power claw buried itself into the machine's head, smashing it into a stony pulp as the others made their escape. "Ograthax, if you'd be so kind." Trace demanded of a particularly large tripedal silicon based life form whose upper body ended in three stabbing arms and was studded with small turrets and a single large one like a walking fortress, as well as barded power armor. The twelve ton juggernaut let loose it's infrasonic rumble and bulldozed it's way past the Xik'kri'vik squad, sending them flying while it's guns and limbs struck out at them mercilessly.

The shrieks of Trace's own kind were rife in the air as they battled the invaders, but Trace didn't need to look back to know they were losing to the superior technology of the Xik'kri'vik. A foe that nearly brought the Chozo and their allies to their knees at their height was surely beyond what force a mere local defence force could muster. But in the midst of the terror, warfare, and bloodshed, a series of holograms were projected off of hijacked broadcasters. Four figures, corresponding to the four greatest castes of the Xik'kri'vik were displayed, one with a burning sun over it's head, one with vast wings, one with almost werewolf like features, and one that stood atop four spidery legs and clad in a hood not unlike that of the grim reaper in human culture. Though Trace didn't know it, this was a broadcast shown to virtually the whole of the known universe, with Xik'kri'vik language systems translating it to the native language of any listener automatically and compensating for the Xik'kri'vik's peculiar grammatical structure.

* * *

><p>Earth:<p>

"Pathetic wretches and base primitives. Heed our warning, we are the Xik'kri'vik, we are the chosen people of the most powerful gods in the universe." The broadcast started, silencing all other displays. The droning, almost digital voice dripped with a sinister imperialness to it's tone, the voice of someone who wouldn't stop or rest until all the universe followed what he saw as right. Jamie looked at the screen, frightened, clinging to his mother's leg who hushed her child comfortingly while the citizens murmured to one another.

* * *

><p>Urtraghus:<p>

"We have come to bring you proper civilization, for yours is wholly inadequate." Pirate High Command immediately began to speak amongst itself, debating on what to make of this message, but they agreed that it could only mean doom and woe for the confederacy. Val'aza'krax, generalissimo and lord of the space pirates, for the first time in a long time, seemed to be in awe. He was awestruck by how a signal could penetrate to his deepest fortress and override his broadcasters. These invaders had some serious technology up their sleeve.

* * *

><p>Vesper-80c:<p>

"You tolerate the presence of unbelievers in your society, you ascribe to the folly of head counting for governance, your societies are unregimented, your people are soft, your technology is primitive, your culture decadent." Sergeant Bragg shuddered at the sight of the sun bearer once again, even as he huddled with some other survivors around a communicator. "They're not pulling any stops, are they?" One soldier asked him, but a groan was the only response. "They seek to "civilize us", the worst kind of conquerors to be sure." A wounded Vhozon sternly stated, narrowing it's four eyes.

* * *

><p>Zebes:<p>

"There is no resisting us, for we are beyond you." Mother brain stirred in her tank, narrowing her single eye. As a creation of the Chozo, she was intimately familiar with their greatest nemesis. Why the pirates had not deigned it necessary to inform her of their return, was something that bore looking into. But now, such infighting would have to wait, now that the Xik'kri'vik had returned, no effort could be spared if they wished to survive.

* * *

><p>G.F.S Olympus<p>

"Your finest minds would pale before our dimmest dullards." They said in unison, though it seemed that the hooded one took the lead. Admiral Dane leaned in close, narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brow something fierce. "God damn…ensign try to trace that signal, maybe we can find something of importance if we're lucky." Dane commanded, clenching the rails of his bridge tightly. This war had taken on a completely different characteristic, that was for sure.

* * *

><p>Daiban:<p>

"Your most advanced weapons are but toys to our warriors." Chairman Keaton frowned as the parliament session was interrupted by the broadcast. Fearful whispers spread throughout the gathered politicians. At least Keaton had a better idea of what the enemy was like now. But what he saw, quite frankly, sent chills down his spine.

* * *

><p>Prison camp:<p>

"Your greatest armies are but a horde of matchsticks to be swept aside by our legions." The four boldly declared as Alice was dragged by two Xik'kri'vik guardians, taller, better equipped, and stronger than the sentinels. She was still groggy, even as they started to rip open her armour in a none too gently fashion, sometimes grabbing her underlying clothes or even some small bits of her body as they ripped her protection away and cast her down with the other prisoners, her curly brown hair already dishelved from being in a helmet for so long.

* * *

><p>Hi'la Nova Space Station:<p>

"Your strength does not even measure to those who inhabited your lands before you. Their power has past, leaving only your weakness behind." They said almost mockingly as the delegates and hunters gathered in the space station gazed onto the viewscreen. Ridley, in another room, sneered, he remembered these beings, though his fight with them was a truly long time ago. Both Samus' and Sylux's groups recognized the part of the Kil'val'lid that they had fought before and the two leaned closer in their seats, knowing that they carried the legacy of their foster peoples. Samus bearing that of the Chozo, and Samuel carrying that of the alimbics.

Unknown location:

* * *

><p>"The legacies of those before you has past, and now none can save you." Old Bird rose from his meditations as he studied the features of his people's old enemy. Strange how the warmongering species was the one blessed with never feeling old age's touch. But a part of him knew that the legacy of the ancient races had not past. It lived on in nine warriors, one of whom he had raised, and one he had hoped and still hoped that the hatchling would be with, the alimbic neophyte. Nine, against a mind boggilingly massive empire, but there were still remnants of the ancients, some of whom had weathered the years far better than others. Some who would held to turn this tide of darkness back. But then a new figure appeared, and Old Bird's breath was almost stolen away.<p>

* * *

><p>"And now behold, our lord, god, and master, and your future dominator. Zyc'kra'val." All over the universe, people beheld the sight of the Xik'kri'vik's leader, and he did not fail to impress a sense of awe into them. Now it was apparent that he dwarfed any of them, and his imperious frame seemed to gaze down on the primitives he was addressing through the furnace like slits of his crown and helmet. "It's the demon from the hieroglyphs." Samus muttered in hushed awe while Sylux choked on his own breath. Spire did his best approximation of a grimace. Executor hacked out a cough despite his mechanical nature. Ridley actually squawked in surprise, having expected the High Dominator to have died in the intervening years. On Bryyo, one of the Reptillicus' jaw gaped stupidly in awe. Hyrag grunted angrily, a sort of instinctual remembrance striking into his brain. In a distant luminoth conclave that refused to settle on Aether, a warrior clutched his staff closely. And deep in the heart of the Zolkri Hierarchy, a deathless general shuddered in remembrance.<p>

* * *

><p>Author's notes: This chapter was a lot longer as it had to introduce a lot of new characters, only a small portion of those who will rise, die, and triumph in this war against the Xik'kri'vik. The Xik'Kri'Vik are strangers to the concepts of mercy or negotiated surrender. You either give in completely without conditions, or they will crush your galaxies and spread your atoms across the stars. Whereas the space pirates are evil because they put profit and self advancement above anything else, the Xik'kri'vik are evil to us because they literally cannot conceive of other species as being equals to them.<p>

To them, Pirates, Krikens, Vhozons, Humans, Chozo, Luminoth, Alimbic, Bryyonian and others alike aren't even animals. They didn't evolve on the Homeworld after all, so to compare them to the noble beasts of their homeworld would be offensive to their gods. They're scum to be bent to their will in the name of their gods. To them, what we see as genocide and slavery is a holy duty to them. The gods, and lord Zyc'kra'val in particular, demand it, so it must be the right thing to do.

They've had a long time to breed out any sort of fear or inhibitions; they will all fight to the end to see their will enacted upon the universe. They are the children of the gods and they are the inheritors of the stars. We're all just squatters in the way of their divine destiny to rule the cosmos. And what kind of enemy is more frightening than the one who believes that their fight is a sacred one? Who believe that their holy duty is not just to win, but to grind your society into the dust, slaughter anyone who disapproves of any aspect of their culture, and enslaves the rest?

Expect the story to take on a "darkest hour" sort of tone as defeat upon defeat besets those who'd rather not bow to the will of a theocratic dictatorship.


End file.
